I am happy to join you at this opening ceremony of the Commonwealth Africa Regional Seminar on Technical Education, and I extend to you all a warm welcome to the University of Ibadan. I greet all of you gathered here this morning under the auspices of the Commonwealth Secretariat to exchange ideas and to consider how best to achieve fruitful partnerships between technical education (particularly technician education) and industry. This, I understand, is the main theme of this seminar, and an appropriate one at that, especially for those of us in developing countries.