EWSETA, CJC and USAf join hands for meaningful TVET College participation in Renewable Energy.

EWSETA, Central Johannesburg TVET College and Universities South Africa join hands for meaningful TVET College participation in Renewable Energy

South Africa’s Just Energy Transition plans are designed to drive inclusive participation that leaves no one behind and communities are capacitated to play a meaningful role in the transition. TVET colleges are at the center of developing occupational skills to respond to industry needs and it is therefore important that TVET management and lecturing staff are capacitated with relevant knowledge and skills if they are to develop and implement TVET skills strategies to enable a just transition.

Johannesburg, Monday, 10 October 2022: A partnership agreement concluded today by the Energy and Water Sector Education and Training Authority (EWSETA), Central Johannesburg TVET College (CJC) and Universities South Africa (USAf), will see five CJC lecturers undergo training in renewable energy and twenty middle managers from the college participate in an intensive management and leadership development programme.

“South Africa’s focus on a transition to a low carbon economy and sustainable economic growth requires a coordinated approach to skills development to ensure that the sector is capacitated with timely and relevant skills,” comments EWSETA CEO, Mpho Mookapele. “And key to this, is capacitation of lecturers, particularly in the TVET College system that requires significant expansion to develop South Africa’s workforce, both for sustainable economic development and for inclusive economic participation.”

Whereas capacitation of lecturers is an important development activity for TVET Colleges, research and related publications have revealed that the TVET sector is beset by challenges associated with leadership, management, governance and institutional lack of capacity.

By implication, the governance and management of academic institutions has become far more complex today than it was in the past. The new demands and pressures placed on academic institutions requires a constantly agile and dynamic leadership. In the past few months, the College

has migrated from ITS version 3.1 to 4.1; developed, reviewed and implemented over 60 policies; and reviewed the college governance model. This process has inevitably set the college on a new trajectory.

As a consequence, “We have approached the EWSETA for funding to support our capacity building and training initiative for our management cohort. The training outcomes are designed to enable managers to perform in a changing and complex organisation with a focus on driving innovation and technology, third stream income, enhanced management of teaching and learning environment and project management of CJC and Industry partnerships for the enhancement of programme delivery,” according to CJC’s Administrator.

The CJC Administrator added that “We are grateful to the EWSETA CEO for her foresight and support”.

The management and leadership development training will be provided by Higher Education Leadership and Management (HELM) that is housed within Universities South Africa (USAf). HELM has a track record of providing leadership and management development to the public university sector for over two decades.

According to Dr Oliver Seale, the Director of HELM: “The management and leadership development programme will assist the leadership team to understand and address the challenges of managing a complex, contemporary TVET college in a changing global and national technology and innovation system, and its key purpose is knowledge and skills acquisition, with a focus on practical application within the college, that will contribute towards establishing a responsive, coherent, collegial and effective leadership team at CJC.”

The support provided by EWSETA to CJC for lecturer development, as well as management and leadership development, highlights the holistic approach EWSETA is required to take in addressing skills development in the energy and water sectors.

“We need to review and consider a variety of touchpoints and make discretionary grant funding decisions based on achieving optimal impact. Our support for this programme with CJC will result in much-needed capacitation within the TVET sector,” concludes Mookapele.