In April 2019, a 15-year struggle and dream of the College to build a fully-fledged campus in Mitchells Plain was fulfilled when former Minister of Higher Education, Minister Pandor announced a significant funding investment for the establishment of a new False Bay TVET College campus that will serve Mitchells Plain, Strandfontein and surrounding communities.
The College is delighted with the City of Cape Town’s announcement on 11 June 2020 of the approval of the transfer of Erf 49076 in Mitchells Plain (Bay View) to the College for the building of this campus. The land transfer now enables the College to start the design planning phase for the campus which, in the long term, will be able to accommodate over 5000 students.
“We wish to thank the Department of Higher Education and the Council for this huge vote of confidence in the College. This campus will enable the College to address two major challenges in South Africa, namely providing access to high quality training that addresses the scarce and critical skills in South Africa and in so doing, addressing the challenge of youth unemployment,” says Karin Hendricks, Acting Principal.
The Mitchell’s Plain campus is currently located in Merrydale Road where the College is renting a wing of a primary school. In its current form, the campus offers post-matric qualifications to more than 600 youth from the surrounding communities. The new campus, will however, increase access to programmes that address the skills needs in the tourism, creative media, business BPO, wholesale and retail, and the services sectors. It will also deliver bridging programmes for youth that will enable them to access programmes where they do not meet the entrance criteria.
The support and buy-in from the surrounding communities is critical for the establishment of a new campus that serves the Mitchell’s Plain and surrounding communities. In the coming months, the College will engage in a social facilitation process to ensure that the surrounding communities are consulted on the development of the campus.
The new Mitchells Plain Campus will complement the College’s existing campus presence in Khayelitsha, Fish Hoek, Westlake and Muizenberg.
To expand its offering in engineering related programmes, the College received a grant from the National Skills Fund (NSF) to establish an engineering campus along the Swartklip road. To this effect, the College has entered into a lease agreement with Airports Company South Africa to use the existing buildings at the old Denel Site. The funding received from the NSF is geared towards repurposing those buildings for education and training purposes.
Nelson Mandela once said that education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world. This echoes False Bay TVET College’s belief. The institution has confidence that through providing access to education, it can indeed change the lives of young people, communities, and society as a whole.
