Our Story
Vhembe FET College is named after the Limpopo River, which is called "Vhembe" in Tshivenda. The college came into existence following the merger process of colleges and the promulgation of the FET Act 98 of 1998. TheformerTechniven College (now Eastcampus) in Sibasa in the Thulamela Municipality, Mavhoi (now the Central campus) at Dzanani and Mashamba Experimental Farm (now the South campus) situated in the Makhado Municipality, combined to create Vhembe FET College.

Techniven College was established in 1963 as the Sibasa Bantu Trade School with 20 learners. Later, in 1986, it was named Finyazwanda Technical College before becoming a campus of Vhembe FET College. The vision of Vhembe FET College is to play an active part in providing a better life for the local community, in particular, by allowing for equitable access to quality education and training programmes that could bring about sustainable development. The spread of the cam puses is symptomatic of the region's economic development. The South campus specialises only in Agriculture related programmes and received a donation of 30 hectares of land from Chief Mashamba for this purpose. The East campus is mainly located at the bustling commercial centre of Thohoyandou. There, the Business department, Mechanical Engineering and Related Design as well as Hospitality, form the key programmes. The Mavhoi campus located in the Nzhelele Corridor is proud of its Civil Engineering and Construction programmes.

The main office at Makhado commercial centre has plans to provide courses in Banking, Retail and Wholesale, Accounting and Business-related programmes. The future of Vhembe FET College is bright in terms of the dynamic development in Vhembe's four municipalities and their Integrated Development Plans, which are mainly linked with the programmes offered by Vhembe FET college.

Number of Students
Headcount: 4 500
Full-time equivalents: 1 820

Location
Limpopo

Campuses
- Makwarele
- Mashamba
- Mavhoi

Critical Skills
Critical skills offered by the college follow the pattern of economic activities in the community: Primary Agriculture, Business Management, Engineering, Mining Construction, Hospitality and Tourism.

Key Strengths
The college's geographical location in terms of the spread of its campuses allows it to provide a variety of programmes to large numbers of youth, especially in the Thulamela and Makhado Municipalities. Its link with the local agriculture co-operative provides valuable information that feeds into its programmes.

The college has established a partnerships unit that focuses on establishing strategic relationships with government, local communities and businesses. With government departments the aim is to provide education and training to reduce scarce skills. With local communities, the unit disseminates information about the college and assists with community projects that aim at reducing unemployment.

The unit works with business to assist in the placement of learners from the college and to provide hands-on experiential learning The college has partnerships with the following organisations:

• Limpopo Department of Public Works;
• Fhatalushaka Training Centre;
• Umsobomvu Youth Fund;
• municipalities; as well as
• local hotels and motels, game reserves, and
• engineering and related design industries.

Department of Public Works: Twenty learnerships in Welding NQF Level 1 were awarded to Vhembe FET in April 2006. The learnerships have progressed smoothly. The fundamentals, and core subjects, practicals and workplace assessment have all being completed with relevant reports. Retraining and final reporting will be completed by March 2007. So far, the recommendation from the Limpopo Department of Public Works is that Vhembe FET College has done a wonderful job.

Fhatalushaka Training Centre: Vhembe FET has established a partnership with Fhatalushaka Training Centre to facilitate the running of learnerships.
The centre's recent participation was in the 20 learnerships awarded by the Provincial Department of Public Works.

Umsobomvu Youth Fund: The college's partnership with the Umsobomvu Youth Fund has resulted in the establishment of the Youth Advisory Centre at the East campus as from 1 January 2006 for three years.

Makhado Municipality: The college's partnership with Makhado Municipality has resulted in 200 students who will be trained by Vhembe FET in various programmes.

Hospitality and Tourism: The Hospitality section is placing students in various hotels and motels. The relationship with these hotels is encouraging for the professional development of our students.

• Primary Agriculture
• Management
• Hospitality
• Finance, Economics and Accounting
• Marketing
• Civil Engineering & Building Construction
• Electrical Infrastructure Construction
• Engineering and Related Design
• IT and Computer Sciences

Telephone
(015) 516-4773/516-4774

Fax
(015) 516-4772/3

Postal Address
Private Bag X2415
Makhado
0920

Email
fetcol@mweb.co.za