2017 TVET Awareness month

The Department of Higher Education and Training (DHET) is to hold a series of career guidance workshops targeting programmes and careers offered through the country’s 50 Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) colleges during the month of August.

The activities form part of the Department’s 2017 TVET Awareness Month campaign aimed at demystifying the negative perceptions about college programme offerings.

With the ambitious goal to ramp up TVET college enrolment to 2, 5 million by 2030, the Department also hopes the campaign will allow prospecting students, young and old, to gain a better understanding of how well colleges can meet their individual needs and interests.

The TVET colleges sector offers vocational training that prepares young people to qualify for priority skills that are mostly demanded by the South African job market.

They include qualified welders, engineers, technicians, motor mechanics, fitting and turners, boiler makers, millwrights, riggers and diesel mechanics, among others.

The government White Paper on Post School Education has prioritised TVET colleges as the apex of the country’s higher education sector and a key driver in reducing the scourge of nationwide youth unemployment.

The Department will also use the campaign to highlight career opportunities in colleges and the proper administration of the selection and placement tests targeted at the so-called Either in Education, Employment nor in Training (NEET’s).

The NEET group represents an estimated 3 million people between the ages of 18-24 who are neither in education, employment nor in training whom post education and training opportunities must be opened in great quantity.

The TVET college sector therefore remains the catalyst in overcoming South Africa’s challenges of skills shortage, unemployment and slow economic growth.

Countries such as Germany, Switzerland, Austria and the Netherlands have successful maintained low youth unemployment rates through vocational education.

The Department will also be encouraging prospecting students to heed the call for the early-bird registration initiative in order to help alleviate the overcrowding during January registration period.