The DIVT’s Director led a seven-member delegation to the Republic of South Africa for a two-days benchmarking visit from April 04 to April 05, 2023. The benchmarking was mainly done in some of the two critical trades; welding and motor vehicle mechanics.

The delegation comprised of the DIVT’s Director Mr. Ernest Simelane and Senior Trade Testing Officer Mr. Sikhulile Makhanya, two trade testing panel members from Gwamile VOCTI; Mr. Elvis Kunene and Mr. James Dlamini for welding and automotive repairs respectively. Also, among the delegation was the Technical and Vocational Skills Certification Enhancement Project’s Manager Mr. Baron Wang, Project Specialist Mr. Mazambane Dlamini and Mr. Vusie Dube the Project driver. The Project was responsible for funding the and coordinating the visit.

The delegation spent the first day at Majuba College’s Newcastle Training Centre Campus. Majuba College is both a training and trade testing centre and is one of the most preferred training centres to some reputable companies in the Kingdom of Eswatini. The delegation was led to their training and trade testing workshops for welding, automotive repairs, electrical engineering, instrumentation, fitting and turning etc.

The Newcastle Training Centre is one of the 26 centres of specialization (COS) for boilermaking and have shared a lot of skills and expertise on how best the DIVT can position itself as the sole government trade testing entity. The training centre also takes part in mentoring students for World Skills Competition and had recently represented their country in Austria for the Electrical Installations category. The delegation also met the Majuba TVET College WorldSkills Committee Chairperson Mr. U Lalthaparsadh who heads the Newcastle Electrical department and had trained the team which represented South Africa in the 2022 Worldskills competition in Austria. It is in the DIVT’s plan to also promote worldskills and the country’s participation.

The second day, the delegation visited FDT Craft Training Centre around Secunda. The FDT is an accredited private institution offering both training and trade testing. The centre offers training course in electrical, pipe fitting, welding, rigging, boilermaking and mechanical fitting. Out of all the courses offered, trade testing is provided on welding, boilermaking, rigging and mechanical fitting. The delegation toured all the training and trade testing workshops.

FDT as a private institution, has a sound business policy; self-sustained and very resilient in the training and trade testing services with over 30-years experience.   In South Africa, unlike in Eswatini, workshops and equipment used for training is not to be used for trade testing and for a training centre to be accredited as a trade testing centre, it should have separate workshops and equipment dedicated to only trade testing. The regulations for a trade testing centre require that each centre should have assessors, moderators and facilitators and should match the students and equipment. FDT is able to fare under such regulations and their staff is remunerated from the money generated from its services. Furthermore, it also gives back to the community.

The two-days benchmarking visits to Newcastle and FDT Craft Training centre follows another which was conducted last year at Shukela Training Centre around Durban. Shukela Training Centre is also a favourite training and trade testing centre to some local companies in the country. The benchmarking at Shukela was for the electrical trade and it preceded the renovation of the DIVT’s electrical trade testing workshop. The visit was also funded by the Project.