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Skills project to 'honour Anene Booysen'

19 April 2013

A R10-million skills development and job-creation investment in construction-related programme will be launched by Higher Education and Training Minister Blade Nzimande to honour Anene Booysen and benefit the Bredasdorp community.

The 17-year-old teenager and her small Overberg town of Bredasdorp in the Western Cape, came under intense national and international media spotlight in February following her brutal gang-rape, mutilation and murder.

Nzimande - through the Construction Sector Education and Training Authority (Seta) and in partnership with the Cape Agulhas Local Municipality - will launch the project on Saturday with the intention of benefiting locals in various training including apprenticeships, learnerships and Recognition of Prior Learning (RPL) programmes.

Nzimande said the impact of the training, particularly of the largely unemployed youth, will be positive and make a difference in the impoverished rural town near the southern-most tip of the African continent in the Western Cape Province.

'Long-term, sustainable benefits'

"In addition to about 700 learners receiving different training programmes, each trainee will also receive a monthly stipend of about R1 500, which will help in alleviating the socio-economic conditions of the community in the short term while the skills they will receive will lead to longer-term more sustainable benefits," he said.

The training will last for a minimum of nine months and a maximum of 12 months depending on field of training, with a stipend of R1 500 per month per learner who will receive short skills programmes, learnerships and apprenticeships.

"Because we recognise that in our communities there are quite a number of informally trained and skilled artisans, this investment will also include an RPL process so that these artisanal skills can be formally recognised and certified," he said.

"This is very exciting as our economy needs artisans now more than ever.”

The short skills programmes will include electrical construction, health and safety and solar geyser installation, while learnerships will be in community house building and road construction.

There will also be apprenticeships offered in carpentry, plumbing and electrical construction. About 250 learners will be taken through a construction RPL process.

Source: SANews.gov.za