The awards gala dinner formed part of the two-day summit hosted by the Department of Higher Education, Science and Technology at the Cape Town International Convention Centre, attended by all of the National TVET Colleges, CET colleges, Setas and critical industry members to establish and strengthen relationships and partnerships for student workplace experience.
In a recent tweet, the minister of Higher Education, Science and Innovation, Dr Blade Nzimande, said: “Forging partnerships with industry will bring us closer to creating pathways for youth to access skills training programmes, work-based training and pursue self-employment without any challenges.”
False Bay TVET College’s Work Integrated Learning and Linkages and Partnership Departments play a key role in enabling students to access the workplace for experiential training and the award recognised their outstanding success in student placement, despite the economic downturn.
In his gala dinner address, Minister Nzimande said: “Industry and workplace are crucial as there is no artisan that can be produced only through theory without practical work experience… For the prosperity of individual citizens, as well as the economy at large, industry must be involved in every aspect of life at a TVET college… There are huge advantages to employers when they open their workplace to TVET college students for experiential training… Having TVET college graduates with relevant skills and experience will translate into a larger pool of talent that employers can choose from. As mentioned earlier, the issue of high unemployment cannot be solely the government’s responsibility… I call upon businesses more than ever to join hands with us to tackle youth unemployment and skills development.”
False Bay TVET College principal, Mrs Karin Hendricks, said: “We train for employment! This is one of the College’s key strategic objectives. Very few people realise the tremendous amount of work that goes into partnership development and how hard this team has worked to achieve very high placement targets, in an environment where so many businesses have been negatively impacted by Covid-19. This is a wonderful achievement that we can all celebrate as a college community.”
False Bay TVET College extends its sincerest gratitude to the Setas and companies who have come on board as host employers, making this prestigious accolade possible. The winners in the three award categories were:
Position 1: Clicks
Position 2: TFG
Position 3: Vodacom
Position 1: South Cape TVET College
Position 2: False Bay TVET College
Position 3: Sekhukhune TVET College
Position 1: Sedibeng TVET College
Position 2: Nkangala TVET College
Position 3: King Hintsa TVET College
