Business Day News:
The KwaZulu-Natal Education Department and a Flemish Entrepreneurship Training Organisation have begun work on a 3-year self-employment education programme to be run at 2 of the province’s Further Education And Training (FET) colleges.
‘Against the background of huge unemployment, high poverty levels and the quest to boost economic development in KwaZulu-Natal, the main idea of the project is to develop effective entrepreneurship training that will positively affect the lives of the people of the province,’ said Wilson Nzimande, rector of the Coastal KZN FET College.
The course will initially be run at Nzimande’s college and the Umgungundlovu FET College. Preliminary work had begun on adapting the training courses used by Flemish college Syntra Midden-Vlaanderen.
The project had funding of R1,4m of which 85% had been provided by Belgium’s economy, science and innovation department, and 15% by the 2 FET colleges, Nzimande said.
Syntra Midden-Vlaanderen’s primary focus was on general business management and its training model had proven successful in creating sustainable new enterprises. The project aimed to begin teaching course lecturers in July next year, and the 1st batch of students towards the end of next year.
The number of students to be targeted was yet to be determined and training would be free. The 2 colleges would develop a range of relationships with outside institutions such as banks so that graduates had a support system when they started their own businesses.
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