AUSTRALIAN Prime Minister Scott Morrison has commended the Fiji National University (FNU) for its partnership with the Australia Pacific Training Coalition (APTC) in an effort to provide training and education to upskill people in the Pacific.
Mr Morrison had visited the FNU’s Derrick Campus yesterday to meet APTC students undertaking a Refrigeration and Air-Conditioning training course.
FNU and APTC have a working partnership that allows APTC to conduct specialised short course training in designated workshops.
FNU’s acting Vice-Chancellor Professor James Pounder said the university looked forward to further developing this collaboration with APTC.
“The Prime Minister and the Assistant Minister for International Development and the Pacific, Anne Rushton were suitably impressed with the developments in the partnership between APTC and FNU,” said Professor Pounder in the statement.
“There is tremendous potential for us to collaborate even more so in the future in terms of resources and joint programs, which will benefit both organisations.”
During the visit, Mr Morrison was provided with an overview of the Derrick Campus Master Plan and brief of the two institution’s partnership by the Acting Dean of the College of Engineering, Science and Technology (CEST), Salabogi Mavoa.
The Master Plan caters for an extended space to provide APTC with more facilities to conduct its training programs.
“The university is also looking forward to having joint programs with APTC where the qualifications will be jointly branded between APTC and FNU,” said Professor Pounder.
“Ultimately, there will be more students because of the joint programmes and this space allocation will enable us to cater for this increase.”
Mr Morrison was accompanied by Assistant Minister for International Development and the Pacific, Anne Rushton.
They were met by Minister for Infrastructure, Transport, Disaster Management and Meteorological Services Jone Usamate, Assistant Minister for Infrastructure and Transport Vijay Nath along with FNU and APTC team.
