Today’s event is a very special occasion, and this is because it is the culmination of a number of other important events.

You may recall that in 2018, the Department of Higher Education and Training (DHET) embarked on a campaign to launch 26 Centres of Specialisation, prioritising 13 occupational trades in high demand, with the aim of curbing the shortage of trade skills while reducing unemployment and poverty in our country.

As you may be aware, these 26 Centres of Specialisation are located at 19 Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) colleges across the country.  The 19 colleges were selected following a rigorous process undertaken by teams of education and industry experts, including the National Skills Fund, to identify trades that are in demand for the national infrastructure programme as well as other strategic programmes.

Further to this, these 26 centres were provided with resources to upgrade their workshops and equipment to deliver effectively on these much-needed skills.  The Centres of Specialisation are well positioned to prepare students for the workplace, or for self-employment, through the maintenance of close working relationships with employers in their areas of study.

We firmly believe that partnerships between colleges and industry, established to assist colleges with opportunities for work-integrated learning, will help a great deal with the placement of students once they have graduated.  This is in line with our White Paper for Post-School Education and Training, which states that the TVET Colleges are to prepare students for workplace and/or self-employment.

You may also recall that, at the 2018 BRICS Summit, South Africa and India signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) to work together on establishing the Gandhi-Mandela Centre of Specialisation for Artisanal Skills in South Africa.  This was in recognition of South Africa’s drive to promote quality vocational education and training for young people, as well as to meet the need for artisanal skills in the country.

A few months after the signing of the MoU, the Minister of Higher Education and Training, Dr Blade Nzimande, and India’s then High Commissioner to South Africa, Ms Ruchira Kamboj, hosted a soft launch of the Gandhi-Mandela Centre of Specialisation for Artisanal Skills.

This will help you understand why I said that today’s event is a very special occasion because it is a culmination of a number of other important events.  In line with the agreement, the government of India injected R48 million worth of equipment and tools towards the establishment of the Gandhi-Mandela Centre.

As a result, today, aspiring mechanical fitters, boilermakers, electricians and millwrights, who are apprentices and employed by the industry, are benefiting from this investment.  I am also pleased to note that this investment has enabled us to increase the number of Centres of Specialisation from the 26 initially planned to 30.

Ladies and gentlemen, there are number of reasons why we adopted the Centres of Specialisation approach.  Firstly, by focusing on trades in high demand, we envisage that the strategic projects of government will be constructed and maintained using high-quality, skilled South African artisans – simultaneously contributing to the realisation of our job creation and poverty alleviation goals.

Secondly, we have a public TVET college system that is ideally placed to play its role in supporting the call from employers and the state for more artisans.  The concept of Centres of Specialisation provides the DHET and its partners with the opportunity to develop sites of good practice which others can follow in due course.

Thirdly, by motivating employers across both the public and private sectors to partner with these TVET colleges, there is a greater chance that together they will build a quality apprenticeship system.  The colleges will then become institutions of choice for employers and apprentices alike.

And fourthly, by selecting certain colleges to focus on particular trades, we are laying the foundation for differentiation in the college system.  While some colleges may later specialise in the same trades, it is desirable that other colleges will develop expertise in other trades and occupations, to ensure less duplication and increased quality specialisation.

At a more strategic level, by taking on this opportunity, the college will be helping the country to ensure that the skills required for its growth and development are available.  Some of the skills that young people will be trained in, for example, will enable them to exploit the opportunities arising from Operation Phakisa, or the Oceans Economy, as it is known.

The Centres of Specialisation programme is paving the way for the transformation of our TVET college system, to make them ever more relevant and responsive to industry’s labour needs, while at the same time enhancing their capacity to deliver high-level, quality occupational programmes.

The strategic repositioning of our TVET colleges is particularly important given the challenges and opportunities of the 4th Industrial Revolution.  As we all know, the advent of the 4IR will disrupt the nature of work and the labour market as we have known them.  However, such disruption should not be viewed as another pandemic, but rather as an opportunity to innovate and make our training and development institutions more agile.

It is our belief that the TVET college sector is ideally placed to respond to such opportunities. We have also started to link the training at TVET colleges to our Skills Strategy in support of the Economic Reconstruction and Recovery Plan that was announced by the President in 2020.

As we all may be aware, we are today faced with overwhelming and uncharted waters as we continue to navigate the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.  COVID-19 has affected not only how we live and work, but also how we acquire skills.  This is particularly crucial for young people, large numbers of whom are excluded from the labour market.

The advent of the COVID-91 pandemic has made the relationship between education, poverty and inequality in even more complex.  To respond to this, we have had to develop new learning material, which will later be available on the National Open Learning System so that apprentices can also download the material and engage in online learning.

In conclusion, the decision to name this Centre of Specialisation after such great men as Nelson Mandela and Mahatma Gandhi, puts added responsibility on our shoulders to ensure that we do not associate their names with failure.

Through their lived example, both Nelson Mandela and Mahatma Gandhi didn’t just dedicate their lives to the fight against injustice, but also sought to bring out the best qualities in each and every human being.

It will therefore be a fitting tribute to these two giants if we use this Centre of Specialisation to empower our young people with the relevant skills to transform their lives and those of their communities, and to inculcate in them the spirit of service to humanity.

We value our partnership with the government and people of India and look forward to many more collaborative projects that will help both our countries address their national development goals.

Thank you.

Source: Government of South Africa