Toespraak minister Paul voor het 'Learning for Life Symposium' van de TU Delft Extension School for Continuing Education
Minister Mariëlle Paul sprak op donderdag 4 april 2024 tijdens het 'Learning for Life Symposium' van de TU Delft Extension School for Continuing Education. Deze toespraak is alleen beschikbaar in het Engels.
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Good afternoon everyone.
Just imagine: you have just finished college, have a bachelor’s degree in your pocket and are about to start working at your very first job. However, after a while, you discover that you are struggling with a long term illness. As you are trying to get back on your feet, you realize that you can no longer do your current job.
You have to be on the lookout for a new career. For a way to reinvent yourself.
This is exactly what happened to Vee Collins from the United Kingdom. She took this moment as an opportunity to continue learning, which led her here, to the TU Delft Extension School for Continuing Education.
At home she was able to follow two Massive Open Online Courses, or MOOCs, to even further hone her Excel skills and to broaden her knowledge of data analysis. New skills that led to new career opportunities, to new chances to prove her worth.
Vee’s story is just one of many that are intertwined with the TU Delft Extension School, which is now celebrating its tenth anniversary. The reason why we are all gathered here. My warmest congratulations are of course in order!
During this past decade millions of people enrolled in courses provided by this school. People from all around the world. People of all ages. People who, at first glance, may not have much in common.
From an electronic engineer from Columbia who wants to learn more about solar energy, to an aerospace engineer from the Seychelles who has the desire to immerse herself in the world of air safety investigation, to a Chilean policies engineer who wants to keep up-to-date on technologies for water treatment.
A very diverse group. They all have their own background, their own family situation, their own reason for following a course.
However, all these people have one important thing in common: every single one of them wants to keep broadening their horizon.
To continue learning.
Which makes me think of a quote by the famous Greek philosopher and historian Plutarch, who said: ‘The mind is not a vessel that needs filling, but wood that needs igniting.’
Because that, in the end, is what continuous education is all about: ensuring that the desire to learn, to find new knowledge, burns bright within everyone.
You do just that. Everyone in this room.
You help keep this fire burning by offering interesting courses on topics like the energy transition, artificial intelligence or the future of transportation, as well as providing the experts who teach these subjects and ensuring that people from all around the world can enroll in these courses.
And your work is much needed.
In the first place, for all those people looking for a place to acquire more knowledge and new skills.
Secondly, your work also helps the Netherlands tremendously. Because this country needs people like you, who see the need for continuing education.
Lifelong learning and development is now more essential than ever before. Because our world is changing at a rapid pace. Leading to major challenges that we have to tackle together.
We need everyone, each of us has a role to play and it is the task of the Dutch government to ensure that everyone in the Netherlands is capable of continuing their education. And I do mean everyone.
Because everyone has their own story, their own journey. Perhaps you have lost your job, and are in dire need of new employment. Or maybe you are looking for new job opportunities within the company you are currently working at, and need to sharpen your skill set further. Or perhaps you have grown tired of your current job and want to completely change course.
Whatever the situation is, you need to have the option to continue learning and to gather new knowledge.
I believe in a culture where it is the most normal thing in the world to keep developing and to keep learning throughout your life.
And I would like to highlight three examples of how the Dutch government is working toward this culture.
Starting with the National LLO Catalyst, a multi-year program which is part of the National Growth Fund. This program is an initiative of universities, colleges and secondary vocational schools and together with business and governments they are working together to give a strong boost to continuous education.
In fact, the Extension School has just received two million euros in funding from this program, to further professionalize its organization and respond even more demand-oriented to the needs of employers, workers and job seekers.
Which brings me to my second example, the website Leeroverzicht.nl. An initiative of the Dutch government, employers, employees and educational institutions. It is a convenient place, containing lots of practical information for anyone wanting to study later in life.
Thirdly, I also want to look ahead.
How can we make it easier for everyone to pursue formal education later in life? Or maybe just follow a few courses? And how do we remove barriers for you, as public educational institutions, so that you can focus on ways for people to participate in lifelong learning?
These kinds of questions and possible answers are at the heart of the Education Agenda LLO.
An agenda consisting of seven points to shape continuous education in the future.
Seven steps, all with the same goal: to convince more people of the need and importance of continuous education. For you, the professionals in public education, this agenda creates a clear objective: there needs to be a place for lifelong learning at universities, at colleges, at secondary vocational schools. You are the ones who contribute to people continuing to study, so that we have all the necessary knowledge and skills to meet the societal challenges of our time.
The Education Agenda LLO also demonstrates our government’s willingness to take these steps. Whether by exploring how educators and the business community can work together even better or by examining the possibility of embedding continuous education in Dutch law.
So we have our plans, we have a clear goal and we have defined a path to reach it. Which path we will eventually take, is up to the next Dutch cabinet.
Which brings me back to the here and now. Because today we are celebrating the ten year anniversary of the Extension School. Ten years in which you have trained countless people, had an impact on their lives and their careers. Ten years in which you have demonstrated the power of lifelong learning.
And for that as well, congratulations are in order. Enjoy today and on to the next ten years.
Thank you!