The colleges and learnerships offer job placement opportunities by private companies, government initiatives and NGOs. There are 50 colleges with more than 200 campuses across South Africa, each with its own focus areas and specialisation.
Speaking at the National Assembly on the state of readiness for the 2023 academic year last week, Minister of Higher Education, Science and Technology Blade Nzimande said the department had implemented new strategies for Post School Education and Training (PSET).
“Each academic year must be approached as a milestone in taking forward our goals to improve access and success in our PSET system. Our department has invested over R2.880 billion in the development and refurbishment of 16 new TVET campuses that will enable expansion of the TVET system over the medium term,” said Nzimande.
He said that by December 2022, the department had secured 10 616 placements for TVET students with employers in the public and private sectors and with NGOs, with support of the Sector Education and Training Authorities (Seta).
“Our Setas combined, placed 44 619 unemployed into learnerships, of which over 34 710 were young people below the ages of 35 years, and over 25 550 were females, at the cost of about R1 billion,” Nzimande said.
Private companies
Mining company Anglo American has recently produced 35 young graduates through its Information and Communications Technology (ICT) learnership programme.
The 12-month Seta-accredited learnership is managed by the local development specialist, Summit, with each student receiving a monthly stipend, a working device, data and an employee mentor from Anglo American.
About 40% of a student’s time is spent doing practical training and learning subjects such as e-commerce, graphic designing, UI/UX and cloud computing.
Of this first group of graduates, 11 have been employed full-time by the nonprofit, Edunova, 10 will pursue an NQF5 coding learnership and 14 will enrol at tertiary education undergraduate programmes.
Zaheera Soomar, Anglo American global lead for education and community skills, said: “It is through such partnerships that opportunities and pathways are created for our communities, particularly in accessing quality education, technology and digital skills. As the programme upscales to more young people, I look forward to seeing the impact it has for them, their families, and communities.”
Anglo American said in a statement that the learnership programme was established following the success of a Google Sprint, which ran for six months in 2021.
The sprint saw more than 150 grade 12 learners from schools around Anglo American’s mining operations complete courses in IT support, UX/UI design, project management and data analytics.
This year the programme will increase its intake to 120 learners in places close to Anglo American’s operations in Limpopo, North West and Northern Cape.
Tshegofatso Mosiapoa, one of the graduates, said on the first day of the learnership she had no idea of how to use computers and programmes such as Microsoft Word, because she had never used a laptop.
“A year later, I am an ICT graduate with my own small business, helping people in my community run, install and update software and teaching them how to use Microsoft. The learnership has given me skills to earn an income for myself. I am excited to further my skills by studying an NQF 5 Systems Development course as well,” said Mosiapoa.
Youth Employment Service
Another option is the Youth Employment Service (YES), which is a network that offers matriculants free access to learning and earning opportunities.
YES is supported by the presidency, National Youth Development Agency (NYDA) and Harambee Youth Employment Accelerator as part of the Presidential Youth Employment Intervention.
The business-led collaboration, YES 12-month programme offers unemployed youth with skills and practical work experience.
Working with multiple companies, people are placed in businesses.
Noxolo Makhothi said she was placed at an insurance company, Telesure, by Harambee Youth Employment Accelerator and that Harambee’s work readiness programme prepared her for the corporate world.
“Arriving at Telesure Investment Holdings, we were trained on the products offered by the company. We were shown how their call centre systems operated. As part of the programme we were assisted in getting certificates such as class of business and the RE5 qualification,” said Makhothi.