PRESS RELEASE: Opening Boland College Centre of Specialisation & Donation Robotic Welders
Starting off the new year with a spark!
Deputy Minister of Higher Education, Science and Technology, Mr Buti Manamela, officially launch the artisan development Centre of Specialisation (CoS) at Boland TVET College, Worcester Campus on 20 February 2020.
In August 2015, the then Deputy President, Mr. Cyril Ramaphosa visited Japan and China with the aim of establishing further cooperation in the fields of Science and Technology, as well as attracting essential skills in support of South Africa’s human resource development strategy. From these partnerships, the idea of creating Centres of Specialisations was born.
Boland College is very privileged to have been nominated by the DHET as one of 2 Welding Centres of Specialisation out of the 50 Public TVET Colleges in South Africa. Our College team consisting of staff at Worcester Campus and Head Office with our other external stakeholders and with our employer partners have worked extremely hard to successfully implement the establishment of the CoS.
“We certainly believe that the implementation plan and the lessons learnt from this experience will stand us in good stead when planning to implement the Artisan of the 21st Century (A21) or the new QCTO Occupational Certificate qualifications in our other trades on offer, namely, bricklayer, electrician and automotive motor mechanic, respectively at Paarl, Strand and Worcester.” said Mr Ebrahim Peters, Vice-Principal: Education and Training, Boland College.
“Centre of Specialisation programmes was created to assist selected Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) colleges to improve their capacity to develop competent artisans with industry partners.” said Mr. Manamela. “These iniciatives at TVET Colleges further seeks to pioneer the way for transformation of the college system to make them more relevant and responsive to the demand of industry labour needs, and ensuring that they deliver high-level quality occupational programmes.”
One of the main objectives of the CoS establishment is for the College to successfully produce, in partnership with employers, quality artisans in one or more of the 13 identified priority trades (of which welder is one) in sufficient numbers to meet the needs of the Strategic Infrastructure Projects (SIPs) and other strategic projects.
The College has managed to facilitate the key component which differentiates the CoS apprenticeship from other learning programmes, and that was to ensure the employers could recruit and conclude an apprenticeship contract with the learner candidate prior to them (the apprentices) starting with the qualification. Our 1st group of 30 apprentices started in March 2019 with short induction at their respective companies, where after they proceeded to start with the Knowledge Modules of the qualification at Worcester Campus.
Through the partnership with MerSeta, state of the art Robotic Welding arms were donated to Boland College by China. This is to ensure the apprentices on the project receives the best training on state of the art and industry relevant machines.
Linkages between Boland College and companies will be formed by creating an employment support room, involving the industrial sector. An employment data base for graduates will be created, the project also aims to change mindsets towards job hunting.
Enquiries:
Boland College
Tel: 021 886 7111
Website: www.bolandcollege.com
Email: media@bolandcollege.com
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Danel Conradie
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