- Government launched the South African National Service Institute (SANSI) on Tuesday this week.
- The institute is led by the SANDF and seeks to continue educating TVET college and university graduates.
- Volunteers will receive practical skills that will hopefully lead to employment.
Deputy President Paul Mashatile presided over the launch of the National Youth Service (NYS) initiative on Tuesday. The initiative is yet another intervention recently launched by the government in efforts to address the rampant unemployment facing South Africans and aid youth in finding permanent jobs, or so it claims.
The NYS initiative is led by the South African National Defence Force (SANDF) and is now inviting young people from the country’s impoverished regions to volunteer. According to Mashatile, volunteers will be able to take part in “a character-building programme and progressing to industry demand-based education and training.”
The end goal for volunteers of the NYS is “gainful employment or entrepreneurship,” the Deputy President adds.
A wide variety of subjects and areas will be covered by the initiative at the newly minted South African National Service Institute (SANSI), an institute where graduates from universities or technical vocational education and training (TVET) colleges can continue to gain practical, industry-specific skills, and hopefully get a boost towards employment.
Subjects like food and agriculture value chain commercialisation, maritime and ocean economy, engineering and construction, manufacturing and infrastructure rollouts, and ICT skills and electronics will be taught at the new institute, Mashatile says.
“This will have a significant impact on restoring livelihoods, creating wealth, and alleviating poverty and hunger among the marginalised,” the deputy president beamed.
“The military will keep an eye on every little cent spent on this project and will go to the future of this country and the skills that we need,” said Minister of Defence Thandi Modise at the launch of SANSI, though they did not immediately reveal what was the scope of the investment.
We scoured the net for an official website for the NYS or SANSI and could not find a proper link. We suspect that it will be rolled out in due time.
With heated elections around the corner, the government has been rushing out several initiatives in order to promote youth jobs and upskilling. In April, it announced a R23.8 billion country-wide Labour Activation Programme that will work towers educating over 700 000 unemployed people in practical in-demand skills.
We will have more information about the SANDF-run NYS when it becomes available.
[Source – SA News]
[Image – CC BY-ND 2.0 Government ZA on Flickr]
