Diploma graduates honoured at CYP Pacific centre

The CYP South Pacific Centre and the Solomon Islands College of Higher Education organized a special graduation ceremony for a group of 9 students who graduated with CYP Diploma in Youth Development Work this year. The graduation ceremony was held on Thursday 24 January 2008 at the CYP SP Centre.

A sense of pride, happiness and achievement was written all over the faces of the graduates when they received their Pan Commonwealth Certificate in Diploma in Youth Development Work (DYD) from the Solomon Islands Minister of Youth, Hon. Peter Tom and the Regional Director of the Commonwealth Youth Programme (CYP) South Pacific Centre, Ms. Afu Billy. The ceremony was also attended by the Director of Solomon Islands College of Higher Education, Permanent Secretary of Youth, members of the Diplomatic community and about 100 invited guests.

The Solomon Islands graduates now join many other youths and youth development workers world wide who have also undertaken this course through the four CYP Regional Centres. The DYD programme in the Solomon Islands is offered through the Solomon Islands College of Higher Education.

The Solomon Islands Minister of Youth, Hon Tom congratulated the graduates for their achievement and urged them to provide the effective leadership to the youth in their communities. He thanked the CYP for its commitment to the region and to the empowerment and development of the Young pacific Islanders.

"As the Minister responsible for youth development, I must congratulate the students who have successfully completed the Diploma in Youth and Development Studies. Your hard work and commitment has resulted in your achievement as a proud graduate of the diploma course this morning. May I also take this opportunity to pay tribute to the Commonwealth Youth Programme South Pacific Centre for the support it has given to the Diploma in Youth Development Studies. I believe this is an area the CYP will continue to support through its Plan of Action for Youth Empowerment and perhaps much more actively now that the Centre is fully staffed."

The Minister also thanked the Solomon Islands College of Higher Education (SICHE) which over the years has continued to deliver this programme. He noted that the running of this CYP Diploma course has had its fair share of challenges and therefore congratulated the SICHE for its perseverance in continuing to deliver the course through the distance mode of learning.

The Minister further said that "Solomon Islands with its large youth population makes the task of nation building a very challenging one indeed and more so as the issues facing our young people today are not easy to deal with. Given our own limited capacity, the situation is even more serious."

"In recognition of this situation, the new Government is ever more determined to include young people in decision-making processes, either in the public or private sector. Government recognizes that young people must be active partners in the development process rather than be seen only as passive victims that expect to be spoon fed all the time. Government is sensitive to the need for young people to be seen as stakeholders in their own right who must be made to participate fully in the development process. Government believes that no governance structure can be successful without the contributions of everyone in society including our young people."

"Government is therefore adamant on providing conditions which enable young people to actively participate in all aspects of nation building and development, including decision making at all levels. This essentially means that for you graduates who have been trained to be youth workers, you must see young people as your partners – partners who have the potential to shape their own lives and chart their own course. Your role as facilitators is therefore very important in helping young people to shape their own destiny."

The CYP Regional Director, Ms. Afu Billy in her address to the graduates, said that offering the Diploma in Youth Development Work course was the Commonwealth Youth Programme’s strategy of professionalizing youth work. She added that by incorporating youth development work into the academic arena through the diploma programme it has become an important tool for advancing greater recognition and respect for youth work practice and the CYP has contributed to the academic and social discourse on youth development at the global level.

“You have learnt to lead through good governance practices, to be accountable and transparent, to be participatory, to treat everyone the same, not to discriminate, to be gender sensitive, to advocate for the rights of all human beings, to be democratic, to involve young people in all aspects of your youth programmes, to always adhere to the rule of law and to consult and get a wider perspective of things before arriving at a decision that everyone is satisfied with,” Ms. Billy said.

Responding to the speeches made by the officials, a graduate spokesperson, Sr. Eremina Gilo called on the government of Solomon Islands to engage them in government programmes. She thanked the CYP South Pacific Centre and the SICHE for enabling them to do the course and that they were very happy to have completed it.

The CYP Diploma is part of its Youth Work Education and Training (YWET) strategic programme area. In the Pacific, apart from the Solomon Islands College of Higher Education, the diploma is also offered in Papua New Guinea by the PNG Institute of Public Administration, Fiji and the rest of the pacific islands countries through the USP, and the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (RMIT) in Australia. Students from Papua New Guinea are nearing the completion of their course at the PNG Institute of Public Administration in Port Moresby and a graduation ceremony for them is scheduled at the end of February 2008.

The CYPSP Centre is committed to strengthening the Diploma programme in the Pacific region. At its annual Partner Institutions and External Regional Moderators Meeting held in Sydney in December 2007, a new plan of action for the Diploma and YWET programme area was charted for the CYPSP Centre. The main aim of the meeting was to provide an avenue for the partnering institution representatives to meet together with the External Regional Moderators and CYP professional staff to review progress on the delivery of the Diploma in Youth Development as well as to plan for future offers with existing and potential new partners. The focus was on four central themes: Setting the context and identifying priority issues, Teaching and Learning, Advocacy and Awareness and New Initiatives, including the Professionalisation of Youth Work and new partner institution in New Zealand, Tonga and Samoa.

The specific objectives of the meeting were:

• To alert participants to new and revised mandates from the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) and the CYP Strategic Plan – 2006 to 2008, concerning the strategic positioning of youth work within the Commonwealth and in particular the programme area of youth work education and training
• To formulate decisions on ways and means to improve the delivery of the Diploma and increase the number of graduating students
• To strengthen dialogue and networking with specific Governments to support the delivery of the Diploma in respective countries
• To discuss issues surrounding the professionalisation of the youth development sector and gauge the viability and sustainability of a Youth Workers Association in the region
• To consider new initiatives in the area of youth work training and education
• To consider a review of the Certificate in Youth Work and other short courses in order to align these with the Diploma and
• To agree on work plans of the PI’s, ERM’s and the new partners up to June 2008.

The CYP South Pacific Centre's vision for the CYP Diploma is to develop the profession of youth work comprising knowledge, attitudes, attributes and skills, acquired through formal and non-formal education and training, guided by a Code of Practice and supported by regulatory mechanisms. The uniqueness of this Diploma lies in providing a robust theoretical framework through a standardized curriculum as well as providing the experiential learning and practical orientation that it calls for. All partners have to foster academic excellence, skills development and attitudinal change as critical components of the programme. In support of this vision, the CYPSP Centre recognizes that it can and will achieve the necessary outcomes and desired impact of developing the profession of youth work through its youth work training programmes including the Diploma in Youth in Development work, the Certificate in Youth work and other short courses.

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CYP South Pacific Centre, Diploma in Youth Development, Official Remarks by Hon Peter Tom, Minister for Women, Youth & Children's Affair