NELSPRUIT – The Department of Higher Education and Training’s (DHET) local learnership programme has learners so demoralised that they are beginning to consider dropping out.
The two-year course is aimed at training unemployed people through local FET colleges, which are administered by the DHET, in a trade of their choice. In Ehlanzeni District Municipality (EDM), these are the colleges in the Mbombela, Thaba Chweu, Umjindi, Nkomazi and Bushbuckridge.
Last year, EDM invited 500 learners, 100 from from each local municipality, to join the programme and acquire NQF level 4 qualifications in either electrical or mechanical engineering, waste water treatment or reticulation, plumbing or health and hygiene.
A total of 24 pupils marched to Lowvelder’s offices on Tuesday to air their grievances. According to the students, they have not been instructed or paid their stipends since January. They said they felt they had nowhere else to turn, since municipality with which they signed a contract was not providing them with answers.
Spokesman for EDM, Mr Lucky Ngomane, said it’s role was to recruit the learners. He said it also had requested the funding from the Energy Water Sector Education and Training Authority (EWSETA).
This is one of 21 such authorities that were established in South Africa in 1998 to encourage skills development through the establishment of a system of levies and grants, the registration of new pupils and the quality assurance of training providers and assessors.
Ngomane explained that EWSETA was the funding authority of the training programme and provided the funds to the Ehlanzeni FET College to run the two-year course. It had also requested the funds on behalf of the college, but these were paid directly to Ehlanzeni FET.
He said the first he had heard of the learners’ unhappiness was with the paper’s enquiry. “We are still surprised that the children are not being paid. They have signed with us, saying they are committed and will not drop out.”
However, many of them are considering doing this after only a few months. “We want to continue but we need the stipend and practical work. Everyone just keeps shifting the blame and many feel demoralised,” a learner who spoke on behalf of the group told Lowvelder.
Ngomane said each college had the power to set up their own appointments to present the programmes with the funds already allocated to them.
Dr Thabang Dlamini, CEO of the Ehlanzeni FET College, which oversees the five colleges in the district, said he would rather not comment on the matter.
