For students dropping out of school with not even a grade 9 to their names, the West Coast College is now offering an opportunity to get their lives back on track.
This is the result of a partnership programme between West Coast College and the Department of Economic Development and Tourism’s Occupational Readiness Programme (ORP).
These students are considered over-aged for school and many become part of the unemployed brigade. It is even more difficult for women who want to enter careers in engineering.
A group of 164 such students in Vredenburg have just completed an Occupational Readiness Skills Programme and have now enrolled for fabrication and welding learnerships as well as the National Certificate (Vocational) in engineering and related design as well as electrical infrastructure.
The ORP provides a bridging programme with a focus on communications and mathematics. This is to prepare students for future formal studies in the trades and occupational courses at the college and takes place over a period of 10-12 weeks.
For 32-year-old Nontembeko Juliet Mzamo it was a dream door that opened. “I never thought that I can learn these skills without having a grade 12 certificate,” she said.
“I always wanted to be one of the ladies in South Africa doing boilermaking. And this ORP has opened opportunities for people like me who didn’t go further with studies,” she said.
All of the students agreed that the programme more than met their expectations. Mcneal Galant, 25, says he is now “better equipped to work well and communicate well in the workplace”. Nontembeko is excited about the fact that she can now work with hand tools, cutting plates, filling, drilling and using a cutting torch.
At the end of the course the students receive a certificate of attendance, which provides them with access to further skills programmes, learnerships and the National Certificate (Vocational), depending on their results. Some of the students have also qualified for the Saldanha Industrial Development Zone skills programmes in boilermaking and welding.
