South Africa faces a great challenge with the current youth unemployment rate standing at 66.5% for young people between the ages of 15-24 years. Many students have experiencing difficulties finding employment as they near the end of their studies and further more once they have graduated.
Minister of Higher Education, Blade Nzimande attended the inaugural TVET Colleges Strategic Industry Partnership Summit that was hosted in Cape Town this week.
The summit seeks to create new partnerships and hopes to commit the public and private sector to increase the numbers of workplace-based experience, internships, apprenticeships, and opportunities for Work Integrated Learning (WIL) within the TVET sector.
Nzimande says that his department is looking to increase the number of student work placements and that Eskom should absorb more interns to assist in ending the nation's current power crisis.
On Monday night, President Cyril Ramaphosa announced his ‘energy action plan’ and part of his plan is to recruit skilled personnel as well as former senior Eskom plant engineers and managers that have the capacity to make real changes.
“One of the things the president said was that we approached previous skilled personnel from Eskom to come back and help. These managers who are being called back each one of them must have a few interns at Eskom so that when they then leave, they gained a pipeline of skills” says Nzimande
The Minister says that to support the president, he wants to put a plan in place so that every incident of loadshedding can be a space for training and skills development for students looking for job placement.
“It is essential to have experience before you go to work as you are enabled to deal with work situations beforehand.” says Northlink College student.
Nzimande says that there are numerous other alternatives that students should look into when they struggle to find immediate employment after graduating.
The Minister added that he has seen some positive changes in TVET colleges but ultimately these institutions can be and do better with the adequate assistance and support. The summit concluded on Thursday with hopes that the department and institutions can work together to increase student placements into the workplace.
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