Bursaries have been opened for engineering students following the signing of a partnership between Midmar Engineering, Mogale City, Westcol and Merseta.
A multi-million rand carrot is being dangled in front of disadvantaged pupils in Mogale City to encourage them to choose engineering as a career.
Bursaries worth R7-million have been announced by Midmar Engineering, with Louis Coetzer, the principal of Western College for Further Education and Training (Westcol), saying the cash will be allocated to needy students from the West Rand.
Midmar is based in the Chamdor industrial area, near Kagiso.
“There are plenty of wasted skills in the area, particularly in the disadvantaged communities within the West Rand,” Coetzer said. “And as leaders in the education field we cannot [allow these] much-needed skills to waste. With the assistance of our partners, mainly Midmar Engineering, we saw the need to help these students.”
To qualify, students should register with Westcol through the Office of the Executive Mayor in Mogale City. He said they should have a minimum of Grade Nine and be out of school. Coetzer cautioned, however, that the project was not intended to compete with schools.
“We do not want to waste government money because students with matric certificates will obviously repeat what they have learned at school, and we do not want to see that happening. Also, we are not saying our pupils should leave the traditional main school for our project.”
The bursaries are for the National Certificate Vocational (NCV) “students only”; the course is three years, with study in electrical and mechanical engineering and information technology.
“To qualify for the NCV bursary, students – with the assistance of their parents – should prove that they are from needy families and cannot afford to pay for their studies. However, we are going to investigate and screen [them]. Upon completion of the course the students will be employable and have a matric certificate that is equivalent to NCV 4,” Coetzer said.
He is also the secretary of the new education partnership between Midmar, Westcol, Mogale City and Merseta.
“As a private-public partnership we are very glad that all the stakeholders saw the need to assist needy students in the area to further their studies. We are proud that this project will assist [us to uplift] the scarcity of engineers and technicians in the country, and most importantly to make education affordable.”
The director of Midmar Engineering, Zola Mbanguta, who is also the chairperson of the committee, was in high spirits about the ambitious project. He said it would improve the required skills in the engineering sector.
“We are pleased to be part of this partnership and our company wants to invest in the education of our students. At Midmar, there are certain skills that we require for people’s employment and we could not do this alone. So we had to identify partners and the municipality is one through its Integrated Development Plan.
“So, whatever we want to do must be within the municipality’s vision, programme and policies. Then we identified Western College, which offers basic education that leads to the skills we require,” Mbanguta said, adding that the aim was to increase the intake of students to 2 000 by 2009.
Shimmy Ramafikeng, the youth co-ordinator in the Office of the Executive Mayor and the committee’s treasurer, said: “We are excited about the partnership. We hope that this project will assist needy students in the West Rand and the entire country in increasing the number of black engineers and technicians.”
The partnership was officially launched last year at the Kagiso Community Hall; it comprises of Mogale City, Westcol, Midmar Engineering, Merseta and the West Rand community. Merseta is the sector education and training authority, or seta, for the manufacturing, engineering and related services field, covering the metal and engineering, auto manufacturing, motor retail and components, new tyre and plastics industries.
For more information, contact Shimmy Ramafikeng on 011 668 0500 in the Office of the Mogale City Executive Mayor.