Developing leadership and management capabilities across all organisations in the country remains the commitment of the Fiji National University.

The assurance was given yesterday by acting FNU Vice Chancellor, Professor Ian Rouse, as the National Trainers Conference began at the Tanoa International Hotel in Nadi.

“We need to invest more in this vital lever of productivity performance in the country,” he said.

“I am hopeful the industry will take full advantage of all the productivity and quality programmes offered through the centre and take training and development of staff as a key priority.”

The conference

With the theme, ‘Innovative, Learn and Connect’; the conference is an opportunity to learn and share world class knowledge, Professor Rouse said.

“Such events help us promote better industry-academia collaboration and believe me; the effects of such initiatives can be immeasurable,” he said.

“I believe we all will collectively learn and share best practices of the learning and development strategies from within Fiji and internationally.”

“Productivity growth drivers include investment in new technologies, research and development, infrastructure and regulatory reform amongst others.

“Many of these are already take care of by government and on this strength, we already see Fiji on a good trajectory of development.”

Professor Rouse considers this conference as a step forward in leveraging their role as a national provider in ensuring better skills and outcomes for our economy.

“I am certain we can make our own small contribution towards making Fiji a knowledge-based society which is indeed a major objective of Government,” he said.

The university is looking forward to making this an annual event given the new direction which has been now set.

Also present at the conference were international consultants, local experts and speakers along with delegates from 40 different companies.

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