Ewseta CEO Mpho Mookapele
South Africa’s technical and vocational education and training (TVET) colleges are not in a good state, Energy and Water Sector Education and Training Authority (Ewseta) CEO Mpho Mookapele has said.
“Our TVETs are actually supposed to be producing skills for industry, because this is where you get practical training and links to industry. But most of our TVETs aren't even linked to industry,” she said during a media briefing, in Johannesburg, on February 27.
She lamented, however, that young people entering TVET colleges were being taught by lecturers who had no practical experience whatsoever.
“We have lecturers who have never been to a solar farm but they are teaching solar installation. We've got young people who are doing water process controlling at TVET colleges, yet they don't even know what a wastewater treatment plant looks like. What do we expect the outcome of this will be?” Mookapele said.
She said the quality of skills development in the country needed to be addressed at this level if South Africa ever hoped to overcome the skills gap faced within the energy and water sector.
“A lot of money is put in these colleges and into the students who are funded to attend them, but the return on investment is not there,” Mookapele said, noting that there was a dire need to ensure that TVET college lecturers were exposed to the realities and practicalities of working in the field.