Limpopo Business 2016-17 edition

OVERVIEW
Training
National and provincial government
are investing heavily in
training. The Limpopo Provincial
Government has a national
pilot project in training for Tool,
Dye and Mould-Making. In 2015
Limpopo’s first 20 trainees qualified.
There is a plan to establish a
Manufacturing Support Centre to
make sure that the right skills are
being taught to support industry.
Involved parties will be the
Limpopo Tooling Initiative Advisory
Board, the Technology Information
Agency and universities.
During 2014/15 the provincial
government made R12-million
available for internships, bursaries
and learnerships. The allocation
for 2015/16 was 50 bursaries and
a commitment to employ 98 interns
with a view to helping them
train for the job market. A specialist
programme to develop skills in
the green economy has 31 young
people supported by the provincial
government studying Energy
Management Systems.
There is a National Student
Financial Aid Scheme, which is
under pressure following a concentrated
protest across South
Africa against high university fees.
Bursaries are also available under
the National Skills Fund.
The Medupi Power Station
Joint Venture (MPSJV: Grinaker-
LTA, Murray & Roberts and
Concor) has a training facility
where about 1 300 local people
have been trained to qualify for
jobs on this complex building site.
Far in the north of the province,
De Beers has established a
Skills Development Centre, linked to its Venetia Mine. The centre caters
not only to mine employees, but also for local school pupils and adults
from the community of Alldays.
Impala Platinum (along with its Limpopo subsidiary Marula Platinum)
has a partnership with the National Department of Mineral Resources
and the Da Vinci Institute for Technology Management, which focuses
on the training of black women in the mining industry. A Master of
Science degree in Technology and Innovation is available to candidates,
several of whom are now in management positions at Impala Platinum.
Anglo Platinum (Amplats) has a new Mining Training Centre (Eastern
Limb) at its Twickenham mine, and this will also deliver training and
assessment to staff of other operations.
What for several years were known as Further Education and Training
Colleges (FET) have now been re-branded as Technical and Vocational
Education and Training (TVET) Colleges. There are seven TVET colleges
in Limpopo: Capricorn College, Lephalale College, Mopani East College,
Mopani South College, Sekhukhune College, Vhembe College and
Waterberg College.
Capricorn College has three campuses, each of which has a slightly
different focus. The city campus in Polokwane offers business studies,
engineering and National Curriculum Vocation (NCV) subjects. Seshego
(outer Polokwane) has an engineering focus while Senwabarwana is
situated in a rural area and concentrates on teaching hospitality and
hairdressing.
At Lephalale TVET College, students can study Business Studies,
Hospitality, Engineering Studies, Nature Management and Computer
Science. The college has a satellite campus at Modimolle. Murray
& Roberts is training hundreds of artisans at the Tlhahlong training
centre in partnership with the college and the merSETA. Siemens has
supported this centre with significant capital investment.
Waterberg College operates as five business training centres across
two municipalities, namely Lepelle-Nkumbi and Mogalakwena.
ONLINE RESOURCES
Capricorn TVET College: www.capricorncollege.co.za
Council of Higher Education: www.che.ac.za
Lephalale TVET College: ww.lephalalefetcollege.co.za
Mining Qualifications Authority: www.mqa.org.za
Sumbandila Scholarship Trust: www.sumbandila.org
Turfloof Graduate School of Leadership: www.ul.ac.za
University of Limpopo: www.ul.ac.za
University of South Africa: www.unisa.ac.za
University of Venda for Science and Technology:
www.univen.ac.za
Waterberg College: www.waterbergcollege.co.za
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