5th February 2025
Higher Education and Training Deputy Minister, Dr Mimmy Gondwe, has encouraged learners to take into account the Technical Vocational Education and Training (TVET) colleges for a valuable and practical alternate for advancing their professions.
The Deputy Minister was speaking in the course of an oversight visit to your post-school education and training (PSET) institutions in the Western Cape this week.
Gondwe explained the TVET colleges as essential for job creation and youth skills development while in the state.
The Deputy Minister visited the West Coast College Vredenburg Campus, along with the Cape Peninsula {University of Technological innovation (CPUT) Bellville Campus in Cape Town.
Gondwe's visits aimed at evaluating the state of readiness of increased education institutions across the nation, in advance in the 2025 academic year.
In the visit at West Coast College, she encouraged learners to consider satisfaction in obtaining artisan techniques as they provide good entrepreneurship alternatives.
"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 get more info as robotics, AI [Artificial intelligence], and coding," Gondwe said.
At the second part of the visit, students at CPUT expressed worries about student residences together with other services. The Deputy Minister directed the institution to work with the Student Representative Council (SRC), to speedily take care of the discovered challenges.
The Deputy Minister’s visit to 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.
In the visits, the Deputy Minister has long been accompanied by vital senior officers from Higher Education and Training, and the National Student Financial Aid Scheme (NSFAS).
The Deputy Minister’s dedicated Help Desk has also formed part of the delegation, assisting with all higher education related queries on each visit.
The issue of funding and administrative problems confronted via the NSFAS was while in the spotlight throughout the Free State leg from 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 website learners; learners need allowances to eat and to buy hygiene products. This is important for their sense of wellbeing and dignity," Gondwe said.
Gondwe embarked on the state of readiness visits following a plan of action, read more 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 coastal tvet college other provinces, with North West higher education institutions more info being the next on the list.
– SAnews.gov.za