Project to launch students in business

With unemployment at a 16year high in the third quarter, a project between the department of trade & industry and African Development Bank (AfDB) aims to produce graduates who will leave colleges with fully functional businesses of their own.

The department got a R23.6m AfDB grant to spend on four programmes to encourage entrepreneurship and revitalise some of the special economic zones built years ago to boost industry. About R6.2m will be spent on the enterprise development pilot in which four technical and vocational education and training (TVET) colleges around the country will groom readyto-operate entrepreneurs and open doors to local small and medium enterprises (SMEs) to use their workshops.

“Instead of making our learners employable, we need to make them their own employers,” said Ekurhuleni East TVET college acting centre manager Gardner Dewu.

The project has been in the making since 2015, but it is taking off now as two of the colleges got workshops recently. KwaZulu-Natal college Esayidi was added this year.

In Lovedale TVET college, Eastern Cape, where the pilot project is in its second year, 356 students and entrepreneurs went through introductory courses since 2018. Twentyeight local businesses joined the SME development programme. They use boilermaker and sheet-metal workshops for their business needs while training.

Pilot project co-ordinator Nontombi Marule said the department wants to shift focus from research & development, by taking research outputs to tangible grass-roots projects.

Alex Area, AfDB principal investment officer, said the aim is to help the government create an entrepreneurial environment. Pilot project students get tradesman toolboxes needed to start businesses. If the project produces the desired results, it will be rolled out to other colleges.