Preparations for the development of the Mitchell’s Plain campus of False Bay TVET College are under way after council approved the transfer of the erf in Bay View, Strandfontein, last month.
In 2018, Naledi Pandor, the Minister of International Relations and Cooperation, in her time as Minister of Higher Education and Training and Member of Parliament deployed to Mitchell’s Plain, committed to building a technical and vocational education and training (TVET) college in Mitchell’s Plain.
On Thursday June 11, Elton Jansen, the Sub-council 23 chairperson and councillor for Ward 43 (Strandfontein and parts of Phlippi), visited the site with James Vos, the City’s mayoral committee member for economic opportunities and asset management (EOAM) and Garin Cavanagh, EOAM portfolio committee member.
Last year, Ms Pandor hosted an information session about TVET colleges, community colleges and the Sector Education and Training Authority (SETA) at Beacon Hill Secondary School in Beacon Valley, to encourage youth to take up study opportunities.
Mr Vos said council approved the transfer of Erf 48076 in Bay View in May to allow the False Bay TVET College to proceed with the construction and ultimate relocation of a portion of the False Bay campus to Strandfontein.
False Bay College, one of three public TVET colleges, located in the Cape Town metropole, serves the south peninsula area as well as Mitchell’s Plain and Khayelitsha, one of the most economically disadvantaged urban communities in the city, he said.
The False Bay TVET College received a grant of approximately R380 million from the national Department of Higher Education and Training in order to establish a state-of- the- art TVET campus in Bay View, Strandfontein. This will result in the college being uniquely placed to respond to the challenge of youth unemployment by offering occupational and vocational training programmes, in scarce and critical skills that lead to employment.
“It is deeply reassuring for me, in this time of dire need for all spheres of government to pull together, and to acknowledge that this proposed sale demonstrates the benefit of inter-governmental cooperative governance,” said Mr Vos.
From the City of Cape Town’s perspective, this proposed transfer will provide a significant opportunity for the City to support a strategic objective of the City’s Integrated Development Plan (IDP).
“I have no doubt that the transfer represents a significant opportunity for the City to help redress the disadvantages of past discrimination, apartheid urban spatial planning and the historic lack of facilities and infrastructure in marginalised communities,” said Mr Vos.
Mr Jansen said the False Bay TVET College project is a benefit for the community at large. “It’s a project that we can be honoured to have on our own doorstep and it will definitely add value. The construction of the college will not just give opportunities to more than 5 000 students from the Strandfontein, Mitchell’s Plain and surrounding communities, but will also have an economic benefit to local contractors and unlock job opportunities for the unemployed in Ward 43 and others,” he said.
He is excited about the project and in full support of it and Sub-council 23 unanimously supported the project.
Karin Hendricks, acting principal of False Bay, said it was a 15-year struggle and dream of the college to build a fully-fledged campus in Mitchell’s Plain.
The land transfer now enables the college to start the design planning phase for the campus which, in the long term, will be able to accommodate over 5 000 students, she said.
The Mitchell’s Plain campus is currently located in Merrydale Avenue, Portland, where the college is renting a wing of a primary school. In its current form, the campus offers post-matric qualifications to more than 600 youth from the surrounding communities.
The new campus, will however, increase access to programmes that address the skills needs in the tourism, creative media, business, wholesale and retail, and the services sectors. It will also deliver bridging programmes for youth that will enable them to access programmes where they do not meet the entry criteria, she said.
In the coming months, the college will engage in a social facilitation process to ensure that the surrounding communities are consulted on the development of the campus.
The new Mitchell’s Plain campus will complement the college’s existing campus presence in Khayelitsha, Fish Hoek, Westlake and Muizenberg.
The institution has confidence that through providing access to education, it can change the lives of young people, communities, and society as a whole, said Ms Hendricks.