Good Morning
Sister Josephine Teo, Assistant Secretary-General NTUC and Chairperson of GPC, Education
Brother John De Payva, President, NTUC
Brother Michael Tan, President of Education Services Union
Brother Edwin Lye, Chairman of NTUC Education Cluster
NTUC Central Committee Members
Brothers and Sisters from the Education Sector
Distinguished guests
Ladies and Gentlemen
A very warm welcome to the Education Services Union’s 2nd General Convention of Delegates. We are also very happy to come together with our brothers and sisters from the NTUC Education Cluster to celebrate the Nation’s 45th Birthday.
This is a day of many firsts for ESU. This is ESU’s first Convention reporting our results after four years since our formation on 31 March 2006. Today, we will celebrate the many milestones and achievements ESU and the Labour Movement have accomplished over the past term for both our members as well as for the education industry.
Another first, is that this is also the first time that ESU is celebrating National Day together with our fellow comrades in the Education Sector. Although our members come from a wide spectrum of institutions, jobs and qualifications, there are many similarities that ESU share with the Education Cluster members.
The Cluster is made up of 9 unions, representing over 35,000 working people from both the private and public spectrums of the education sector. The majority of these members are our PMEs and the Education Cluster is in the forefront of representation of PMEs.
The cluster is also working on the re-employment of our mature workers. Other than providing the platform for sharing of best practices such as the re-employment policy of the Ministry of Education, a key adopter and leader in this area, the cluster is also studying how to help our members improve their employability through continued professional training and development and how to share resources amongst the unions such as identifying alternative job opportunities within our growing education industry.
Today’s joint event is a show of solidarity of the unions in the Education cluster and ESU looks forward to working with our brothers and sisters in the education sector to continue to advance the interest of our members. This can be in the area of productivity by leveraging on the framework of Cheaper, Better, Faster. ESU will continue to review to see how we can continue to support the education industry to be more flexible, provide better services with higher value add more efficiently for the benefit of the people of Singapore.
On this note, I would to thank Sister Josephine and all our guests for joining us for our National Day Celebrations. Happy National Day!
Thank you.
