This initiative will help ensure that the Northern Cape Rural FET College achieves full trade test centre accreditation as a training provider and trade test centre for fitting and turning, diesel mechanics, boiler making and electrical work.
The grant also allows for the purchase of new equipment, tools and learning material that will be housed in an upgraded workshop, as well as training and development of management and selected staff members, to ensure proper and sustainable management resources. Other partners will provide ancillary support to the project, including bursaries.
It will also allow learners from the region to gain National Qualifications framework (NQF) level 4 accreditation, which means members of the community will not have to travel up to 800 kilometres to other colleges and trade test centres. Apprentices will be indentured into the programme from January 2013, and will complete their first level by the end of the same year.
Chairman's Fund chairperson Norman Mbazima says that skills upliftment is an urgent requirement for the Northern Cape. "The Northern Cape has huge developmental challenges, with 43% of people living below the poverty line, and employed people mainly working in the primary sector, particularly mining. Therefore, this co-grant will prove to be a great asset to the prosperity of the province, as it will help improve skills, which will create wider employment opportunities, and ultimately stimulate long term economic growth."
Construction planning commences in January 2012 and is expected to be completed by the end of November that same year.
