It is a particular pleasure to address today's event because it is the first National Forum of the National Centre for Education for Work and Enterprise. As many of you know, the relationship between education and work has been an interest of mine for a while. Nothing in the four years or so since Education for Work emerged as an important policy has dissuaded me from the view that education for work in schools will be one of the key factors in our economic and social success over the next decade in Scotland.
Education is a vital part of the cycle of social and economic change and development.
Young people have to be able to cope with that cycle, and to shape it and influence it or else we will have a stagnant economy and unstable society. The economy depends directly on the availability of skills and knowledge in the working population. The coming together of this first National Forum, with the subsequent round of national seminars on the HMI report, provides us with the genuine opportunity at national level to raise the profile of education for work and to increase the momentum which has been generated for the initiative. In so doing we can exert real influence on the quality and direction of the education system on which we are so dependent. Philosophically, then, I believe that education for work is a crucial part of education.