Vhembe TVET College: Geared For Excellence

Vhembe TVET College

Geared For Excellence

Vhembe TVET College is one of the progressive TVET colleges with coherent systems and initiatives that effectively support teaching and learning. In its 55 years of existence the college has produced people of prominence in various fields of trade.

Due to the vastness of the area the college has, by far, the most enrolled students in the college than its peers, nationally. Through partnerships forged with strategic institutions, like SETA’s, it has made Vhembe TVET College to be an institution of choice.

COLLEGE PROFILE

Vhembe TVET College was established in 1963 under the name Bantu State School. In 1967 the school was then named ‘Bantu Trade School’ due to its diversity.

In 1985, the school was renamed to Finyazwanda College until 1992, which was when it was renamed as the Technical College of Venda (Techniven), until 2003. In 2003, the college then became known as Vhembe FET College (up until 2014). Today, the college has six campuses: Makwarela Campus, Tshisimani Campus, Mashamba Campus, Mavhoi Campus, Thengwe Campus , Shingwedzi Campus and Makhado Satellite Campus – and is officially known as Vhembe TVET College.Vhembe TVET College is located in the Vhembe District Municipality, which is in the far north of the Limpopo Province.

The District comprises four municipalities, namely, Thulamela, Makhado, Lim 345 (Collins Chabane Municipality) and Musina, with the seat located in Thohoyandou. It covers 21, 000km2 or 18% of the province. The college has six campuses, namely, Makwarela, Mashamba, Mavhoi, Tshisimani, Thengwe and recently launched Shingwedzi.

The Central Office of Vhembe TVET College is situated in Sibasa about 3km from Makwarela Campus, about 49km from Mavhoi, 77km from Mashamba and 31km from Tshisimani Campus, 29 km from Thengwe Campus which is situated at Mutale area and is specialising in learnerships and short skills courses and also offers NCV and Report 191 Business studies programmes.

The college and the DHET launched the established Shingwedzi Campus at Malamulele area to open in 2017 – which is 42km from the Central Office and a satellite at Musina. The economic activity in the area is characterized by small enterprises, e.g. agricultural activities, tourism and mining, car servicing, and welding; distributed among the rural settlement. Unemployment and poverty and inequality are huge problems. The unemployment rate is incredibly high, much more than the provincial average.

There is a shortage of infrastructure and big industries for the placement of students and lecturers.

MAJOR SKILLS BOOST IN AGRI-HORTICULTURE FOR TVET COLLEGES

Vhembe Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) College (Mashamba Campus) is the second TVET College beneficiary of a technology-driven greenhouse tunnel in South Africa.

The objective of the three-year Orange Knowledge Programme (OKP), titled “Strengthening Skills of TVET Staff and Students for Optimizing Water Usage and Climate Smart Agriculture in South Africa” is to develop the skills of TVET graduates in the agri-horticultural sector and enhance their employability.

This is one of the milestones in the Stellenbosch University (SU) and Maastricht School of Management (MSM) project partnership – the project is funded by the Netherlands Universities Foundation for International Cooperation (NUFFIC), through the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

The installation of the greenhouse tunnel is the result of a number of assessment activities which involved researchers from SU, Dutch greenhouse experts through MSM, as well as TVET staff from Vhembe, Motheo, and Boland Colleges. One of these assessments, conducted from December 2019 to January 2020, highlighted the key industrydriven skills requirement by the private horticulture sector in the domain of water-smart agrihorticulture. The investment in the greenhouse will therefore develop and enhance the skills and employability of TVET graduates.

The official greenhouse handover took place on Friday 27 August 2021, through which Mr NW Maumela, campus manager at Mashamba Campus of Vhembe TVET College, introduced all parties present and gave a detailed account of activities that are currently carried out at the campus. Mr J. Sambo, deputy admin manager at Vhembe TVET College and program director of the day, followed up by elucidating the purpose of the event.

The greenhouse operation workshop was conducted by Mr B. Stevens from Vegtech, supplier of the greenhouse tunnel, who trained the TVET staff members about all relevant technical aspects and maintenance considerations for the tunnel. Thereafter, Dr R van der Westhuizen, a crop production specialist, inspected the greenhouse and approved its operation and functionality by signing off the final acceptance certificate and handing over the greenhouse key to Vhembe TVET College.

Over the next few weeks, Dr van der Westhuizen will play a crucial role in the operationalisation of the greenhouse and starting with horticultural production training in the greenhouse for the college students. Ms BR Hlekane, principal of Vhembe College, concluded the event program by extending her gratitude and acclaim to the OKP partners for making the greenhouse establishment a success. A longstanding relationship will be important to fulfil the objective of developing the skills of college students using crop management technologies in the greenhouse. A third greenhouse tunnel was erected at Boland TVET College (Worcester Campus) at the end of October 2021.

MULTIMEDIA CENTRE FOR STUDENTS WITH DISABILITIES

The MTN SA Foundation in partnership with the Office of Deputy Minister of the Department of Social Development, Hendrietta Bogapone-Zulu, has launched a state of the art multimedia centre for students with disabilities at Vhembe TVET in Makwarela Campus.

The innovative development with 20 workstations in the multimedia centre adapted to cater for deaf, blind and partially sighted students. The programme is structured around the effective use and integration of technology and digital content in the classroom through the construction of multimedia centres, provision of equipment and curriculum aligned software.

MTN’s R1.249mn investment at Vhembe includes the following:

• A fully refurbished lecture room

• 20-seater workstations, with keyboard and mouse for each station

• Interactive whiteboards with accessories (wand and pen)

• Web Camera HD High-end and stand

• Instructor PC

• One data projector

• One multipurpose printer

• Offline digitised educational content and interactive learning content for both multimedia centres

• Antivirus protection

• Office 365

• Air conditioner

• Training on the equipment and digitised content for a minimum of 10 staff members

• 30GB data connectivity per month for a period of 24 months for each multimedia centre n

COURSES OFFERED

NATIONAL CERTIFICATE VOCATIONAL (NCV)

Engineering Studies (NCV)

• Electrical Infrastructure and construction

• Civil Engineering and building construction

• Engineering and related design

• Information technology and computer science

• Process Plan Operations

Business Studies (NCV)

• Finance, Economics and Accounting, (FEA)

• Generic Management

• Marketing Management

• Office Administration

• Primary Agriculture

• Educare

REPORT 191/ NATED STUDIES

• Chemical Engineering (Water Treatment)

• Civil Engineering (Masonry, Plumbing, carpentry, Roads and bricklaying)

• Electrical Engineering (Light and Heavy current)

• • Mechanical engineering (Boiler making, fitting and turning, motor mechanic)

NATED (REPORT 190 / 191)

Business Studies

• Marketing Management

• Human Resource Management

• Financial Management

• Business Management

• Public Management

• Management Assistant

• Farming Management

Utility Studies

• Hospitality Services

• Clothing Production

• Tourism

Short skills such as:

• Project Management

• Entrepreneurship skills

• Learnerships

• Drone Pilot (outsourced)

• Financial management, Business management and office administration courses (some offered in a distance learning mode).

COMPANY DETAILS

Address: Stand No. 203 Unit A, Sibasa, Limpopo, South Africa

Tel: +27 (0) 15 963 7000

Web: vhembecollege.edu.za

Email: info@vhembecollege.edu.za

Social Media: @VhembeTVETCollege