After almost a year of ongoing groundwork, a partnership between Mogale City Local Municipality and the Randwater Foundation and Education saw the launch, opening and promotion of a modern Career, Science and Resource Centre on Friday, 5 December in Mogale City. The centre was named after the city’s late executive mayor and will be known as the Naga Lipudi Career, Science and Resource Centre.
This is the first career, science and resource centre in Gauteng and the seventh that the Rand Water Foundation has funded. Estimated to cost the foundation around R4.5m, this centre uses a Careers by Color model which promises to guide young people on a career or training path through creative interaction with career data. Targeted to service high schools in Gauteng and beyond, this creative interaction allows learners to create an individualised interest profile and to interactively explore a wide range of exciting career possibilities through multi-media. In this way, learners are empowered to make informed educational, training and occupational choices and do proper career path planning.
Addressing the audience at the event, Rand Water Foundation General Manager Mohlatleho Sekoaila said the career centre is one among many interventions by the foundation aimed at contributing towards addressing societal challenges such as youth unemployment in the country.
“Rand Water Foundation is delighted to have partnered with Mogale City through the late Mayor Lipudi. This initiative forms part of our broader objectives to advance the academic levels of our communities,” Sekoila said. So in addition to our water and sanitation projects, the foundation carries out educational, health and other related projects in support of government’s education and health systems. This ensures that Rand Water continues to help government in improving the lives of our people,” Sekoila concluded.
In his acceptance speech, the city’s Executive Mayor Francis Makgatho said: “This resource centre will go a long way in assisting our leaners to make good and correct career choices moving forward. We are happy that through the vision of my predecessor, today we boast a state of the art centre that will not only by name be his legacy but as we mould better careers for our children his legacy will live beyond.”
“We would also like to extend our gratitude to Rand Water and Rand Water Foundation for coming on board and ensuring that this private-public partnerships is not just a buzz word or a failing concept, but a model that shapes the lives of the future for the better,” he added.
The Gauteng West District Office’s Curriculum Education office was also in attendance and fully applauded the initiative.
The centre which is expected to operate from Mondays to Fridays between 07h30 and 15h00 and possibly Saturdays when prior arrangements have been made, has surprisingly for its first week (7-11 December 2020) attracted full bookings from schools. Kingswood Academy located in Mogale City will be the first to bring all its learners to the centre whilst Townview will be visiting with all its 195 Grade 9 learners who will be choosing career subjects for the 2021 school calendar year.