Seychelles Nation - 31.05.2010
The empowerment programme for the country’s young leaders initiated by President James Michel in 2007 and launched the following year has been transferred to the University of Seychelles (UniSey).
The new move will ensure continued delivery of the Seychelles Young Leaders Programme (SYLP) which targets the leadership skills of young Seychellois with minimum disruptions to studies already on the way in the second cycle.
Since its inception, it has always been the government’s intention to transfer the programme which is run in partnership with the Institute of Public Administration (IPA) – a college of the National University of Ireland – to an appropriate higher education institution in view of its academic focus.
Under the new agreement, the UniSey will coordinate and manage the programme while IPA will continue to deliver the academic part with no expected changes.
According to the programme officials, integrating and enrolling the trainees as students of the UniSey as well as IPA, provides an important platform which will allow the programme to continue for many years to come.
To formalise the agreement, a memorandum of understanding was signed on Friday by the vice-chancellor of UniSey Dr Rolph Payet and principal secretary in the Vice-President’s Office Lucy Athanasius, who is also the programme coordinator.
The signing ceremony in the auditorium of UniSey’s School of Education at Mont Fleuri was attended by Secretary of State Jean-Paul Adam, members of the National Assembly, government officials and trainees of the programme’s second cohort.
Dr Payet described the move as a new milestone and said the UniSey will be ready to take over the whole programme when it enrols its third cohort.
He added that the UniSey is ready to take up the challenges which he said will not affect its present schooling agenda.
