The department of higher education has called on matriculants to consider TVET Colleges as a viable alternative when planning to pursue tertiary education.
However, TVET college sector is not without its own challenges as there have been reports that the sector produces a lower quality of graduates, compared to traditional universities, an issue that is attributed to the current state of the existing curriculum.
Despite this, DHET has continued to dispel this notion and encourages prospective students to take advantage of the practical career-focus mode of education offered by TVET colleges
This comes as the higher education sector is dealing with a variety of challenges including recent student protests against the new funding model implemented by the National Student Financial Aid Scheme.
While speaking at this year’s first TVET Curriculum Transformation and Innovation Summit on Monday, Higher Education Minister, Blade Nzimande recently stated that TVET Colleges must be at the centre of skills development.
The department has set a target 2.8 million TVET College students by 2030. According to the Minister, TVET Colleges currently produce an average of 20 000 qualified artisans a year.
The department has also made a further investment of R68 million into 16 Colleges in an effort to expand the existing amount of TradeTest Centres. Similar efforts have been made to increase the number of Centres of Specialisation to 34 across 27 TVET Colleges.
To date the Department has opened up 14,954 TVET placement opportunities to the value of R726 Million and also committed to achieve a target of 20,000 placements of TVET graduates work placements as per the President’s commitment at this year’s State of the Nation Address.
