Further education and training (FET) colleges were key in driving the growth of the South African economy and the mining industry, African National Congress secretary-general Gwede Mantashe said last week.

Speaking at the launch of the National Union of Mineworkers’ (NUM’s) Elijah Barayi Memorial Training Centre (EBMTC), he added that education opened up new vistas of opportunity for individuals and it was important for the NUM to provide an environ-ment for learning and skills development.

He said that the mandate of the NUM, since its inception in the late 1980s, was for mineworkers to take control of the mining industry and, to accomplish that, mineworkers needed to be educated.

“EBMTC serves as a learning institution that follows the NUM’s mandate and, to further develop the state of our economy, this organisation must focus not only on training individuals for managerial positions in the mining sector but also on providing a technical centre where skills development can take place,” said Mantashe.

The opening of the centre was a step in the right direction for the NUM’s Mineworkers Investment Trust, as was expanding its footprint with regard to educating shop stewards and ensuring that they had more to offer when they returned to their respective communities, noted EBMTC chairperson Helen Diatile.

She explained that the centre provided train- ing and capacity building for union members and their dependants, offering a wide range of skills, from arbitration courses, computer training and regional politics to labour law courses.

Moreover, EBMTC executive director Mercy Sekano pointed out during the launch that the centre had applied for FET status, which was expected to be granted by the end of the first term this year.

“After attaining FET status, this will create opportunities for our members to not only gain skills but also enrol in credible courses, which will enable them to be employed in either the mining sector or other sectors in the economy,” he added.

For this reason, Mantashe said that the mining sector should act as a partner to such initiatives by giving graduates the opportunity to apply their skills in the industry by employ- ing them at different mines.

He said providing such skills would ensure that even when the graduates were unemployed, they could still use their skills by starting their own businesses and offering their services to communities.

“Although the NUM is on the right track . . . if we can have a graduate number of one-million, then we would have impacted positively on our economy,” he said.