Western Cape Business 2017 edition

SPECIAL FEATURE a good

SPECIAL FEATURE a good illustration of the range of studies available to students at TVET colleges. Courses at CCT range from engineering (electrical, civil and mechanical), through travel and tourism, hospitality, hair care, beauty therapy and art and design, to business studies, information technology and education and training. The college has three residences in different parts of the city. Career guidance is offered and the college has a work placement programme for graduates. Northlink College is in Cape Town’s northern suburbs and is an innovator in workplace monitoring. It has three business units that give students experience: Hair and Cosmetology, the Clothing Factory, and a restaurant and conference centre. The Fitting and Machining Centre of Excellence at Wingfield has the latest equipment. False Bay TVET College has campuses in Fish Hoek, Muizenberg, Mitchells Plain, Khayelitsha and Westlake. Engineering skills are a key focus for this college, together with hospitality. Appropriately, given its geographic locations, False Bay TVET also teaches Yacht and Boat Building. The college has an enrolment of more than 10 000. Outside the Cape metropole, Boland College looks after Stellenbosch, Worcester, Paarl and Caledon, while the Southern Cape College covers a wide area, from George to Beaufort West. The West Coast College also has a big catchment area. Private colleges such as MANCOSA (Management College of Southern Africa) often specialise in particular fields. In this case, a range of certificates, diplomas and degrees in business, commerce and administration is presented at five sites around South Africa, including Cape Town. The business training programmes of Africa Skills Private College include courses on leadership, occupational health and safety and new venture creation. Universities In 2014, a total of 5 680 engineers qualified from South Africa’s 26 universities. A further 2 667 computer scientists were capped but these numbers are far from adequate to cater to South Africa’s economy. Western Cape universities are very aware of the need to align their courses and research programmes with WESTERN CAPE BUSINESS 2017 64

SPECIAL FEATURE the needs of the economy. However, pure research cannot be ignored and in this area all three of the academic universities are strong: the University of Cape Town, Stellenbosch University and the University of the Western Cape. A Master of Business Administration (MBA) is offered both by the Graduate School of Business at UCT (which also has an executive MBA) and the University of Stellenbosch Business School. USB also presents an MPhil in Development Finance. The National Nanoscience Postgraduate Teaching and Training Platform is based at the University of the Western Cape in Bellville, with master’s degrees in nanoscience and nanotechnology on offer. UWC also has 14 SARChi Chairs, including Nano-Electrochemistry and Sensor Technology, Bioinformatics and Human Health Genomics and Microbial Genomics. There are three World Health Organisation (WHO) Collaborating Centres at UWC and the Centre of Excellence in Food Security (with Pretoria University) is funded by the National Research Foundation and the Department of Science and Technology. Biotechnology and food security come together in the Plant Biotechnology Research Group at UWC, which studies ways of developing crops that can resist drought. This kind of focus on specific challenges facing society in South Africa is an example of universities working to make their research relevant. The University of Cape Town is offering a course in Health Innovation that encourages talented young South Africans to find solutions to the country’s health problems. The MPhil in Health Innovation falls under the Division of Biomedical Engineering and is open to anyone with a four-year degree in a relevant discipline, which could be anything from medicine to engineering. Several master’s degree programmes at UCT aim to address the particular challenges of South African society: the Climate Change and Sustainable Development degree can be tackled through any one of the university’s six faculties and in 2017 a new degree will be on offer, a Master’s in Public Health (Faculty of Health Sciences). Another UCT degree that tackles a specific challenge faced in the South African economy is a Master’s in Sustainable Mineral Resource Development. Stellenbosch University is another Western Cape institution that is tackling sustainability: a diploma will soon be on offer in this discipline, through the School for Public Leadership. The university also intends offering an MSc in Food and Nutrition Security that will tackle the problem from several angles. In George, students have access to courses offered by the Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University (NMMU): Saasveld is home to the School of Natural Resource Management and the York Street Campus delivers courses in business and social science, accounting and business management. Among the new courses on offer at the Cape Peninsula University of Technology are diplomas in geomatics (one of South Africa’s most soughtafter skills to aid surveyors, town planners and civil engineers), clothing and textile technology, and horticulture and landscape architecture. 65 WESTERN CAPE BUSINESS 2017