happy spring ehlanzeni

Message From

The College Principal

My warm greetings to all the College’s family members. The year 2021 left us with a lot of scars by taking so many of our beloved ones through the Covid-19 pandemic. I strongly believe that all of us were affected by this cruel ailment in one way or the other and those of us who survived must indeed be grateful. We are again staring the new year with uncertainty of not knowing how the pandemic will unfold over the course of the year but we are better off as opposed to how we were two years back. Let us then observe all the protocols designed to keep us safe.

I wish to welcome our College Council, led by the astute Dr Yende, welcome all the members serving in our various governance structures, welcome the College and Campus Management teams, welcome all our staff members irrespective of the nature of employment and lastly but not necessarily least our highly regarded students. The College welcomes all our new students and wish all students, new or returning a rewarding 2022.

Our College, like any other family will be confronted by numerous challenges during the course of the year hence the challenge for all of us to remain focused on what would be right for the College as a juristic person, we are all challenged to advance the values of the College with a view of enhancing its public image.  Our College is operating in a lot of fronts performing a variety of functions for a variety of stakeholders but remain a public institution designed to serve the public hence our continued resolve to embrace the public servant imperatives. I therefore would like to remind all of us irrespective of position on the importance of living the BathoPele principles with its associated ethical conduct.

Academic excellence sits at the core of our deliverables hence the invite to all of us to keep this as our guiding rule. We have begun a positive trajectory in academic performance but still far from excellence hence our motto ‘Committed to do more’. With the resources available we can do more and we shall do more.  The pledge to do more applies to all irrespective of position, nature of employment or nature of student registration, if we all do more from how we did in the past, our College will realise its vision of being the World-class college providing relevant vocational education and training.

The College has embarked improvement on an infrastructure development campaign guided by a blueprint procurement plan and funded in the main by the CIEG grant. This development is certainly changing the look and feel of the college sites. Whilst celebrating the impact that the CIEG grant is having on the College infrastructure it is fair to heartedly appreciate the contribution that Glencore Smelter has had at our Mashishing Campus, the Company continued their support of the College by constructing 8 state of the art classes at the Mashishing Campus and these will be launched on 25 February 2022.

The Corporate Services Unit led by Ms Akhona Mayosi is working tirelessly to ensure our new infrastructure accommodates inclusivity and complies to the health and safety standards. To this effect a multidisciplinary Occupational Health and Safety Unit has been established.  The College Management has noted with keen interest the priority areas that both the Minister, Dr BEB Nzimande and Dr N Sishi would like to see TVET Colleges exploring in the near future. The priority areas which include but not limited to the deliberate reduction of producing unemployable graduates through focusing training on Occupations in High Demand, increasing student tracking systems, increasing student placement, venturing into technology and increasing the technology savviness of the lecturing staff.

As I close my write-up I wish to re-iterate the ethical conduct expected of all employees in the new year, these include College employees abstaining from doing business with the state and them disclosing any extra income generated through other means than the state itself. I personally pledge to live our motto of the year “Committed to do more”.