5th February 2025
Higher Education and Training Deputy Minister, Dr Mimmy Gondwe, has inspired learners to consider the Technical Vocational Education and Training (TVET) colleges as being a worthwhile and viable choice for advancing their professions.
The Deputy Minister was speaking in the course of an oversight visit to your post-school education and teaching (PSET) institutions in the Western Cape this 7 days.
Gondwe described the TVET colleges as important for job creation and youth skills development from the country.
The Deputy Minister visited the West Coast College Vredenburg Campus, plus the Cape Peninsula {University of Technological know-how (CPUT) Bellville Campus in Cape Town.
Gondwe's visits targeted at assessing the condition of readiness of bigger education institutions across the country, in advance from the 2025 academic year.
In the visit at West Coast College, she encouraged learners to just take pleasure in obtaining artisan competencies as they offer good entrepreneurship opportunities.
"I am very encouraged by what I'm seeing at TVET colleges, I believe they are the future of this country. TVETs are producing artisans with much needed skills [and] also offer opportunities for learners to acquire future skills, such as robotics, AI [Artificial intelligence], and coding," Gondwe said.
At the second part of the visit, students at CPUT expressed problems about college student residences as well as other services. The Deputy Minister directed the establishment to operate with the Student Representative Council (SRC), to speedily solve the discovered issues.
The Deputy Minister’s visit to thekwini tvet college the Western Cape, follows her recent visit to higher education institutions in the Free State where she visited Goldfields TVET College and the Central University of Technology (CUT), at the Welkom campus.
Through the visits, the Deputy Minister has become accompanied by important senior officers from Higher Education and Training, and the umfolozi tvet college National Student Financial Aid Scheme (NSFAS).
The Deputy Minister’s dedicated Help Desk has also formed part of the delegation, assisting with all here higher education related queries on each visit.
The difficulty of funding and administrative challenges confronted check here by the NSFAS was in the spotlight during the Free State leg of the visits.
"NSFAS needs to get its act together, in order to ensure that student allowances are paid on time with no delays. Delays cause serious challenges for learners; learners need allowances to eat and to buy hygiene products. This is coastal tvet college important for their sense of wellbeing and dignity," Gondwe said.
Gondwe embarked on the state of readiness visits following a plan of action, announced by Higher Education and Training, Dr Nobuhle Nkabane at the special meeting of the Post Education and Training sector held in January 2025, to establish the state of readiness for the 2025 academic year.
The Deputy Minister's oversight is expected to continue in other provinces, with North West higher education institutions being the next on the list.
– SAnews.gov.za