Tembisa – Gauteng Department of Education MEC Panyaza Lesufi, with the support of the Kempton Park Tembisa Tourism Association and Emperors Palace, launched the first entrepreneurship school in Ekurhuleni Municipality with the main focus of tourism, hospitality and entrepreneurship.
Lesufi officially launched the school of specialisation in Tembisa as the first such institution in Ekurhuleni.
Tembisa Commerce & Entrepreneurship School of Specialisation boasts its own hotel, with a reception, bedroom, bathroom and laundry room. This is a classroom of the future as learners gain practical knowledge and skills in the tourism and hospitality field.
Before taking the stand, Lesufi was given a performance by one of the learners in appreciation for the MEC being a “visionary” leader in the education sector.
Addressing the launch, Lesufi said if we could not skill the country, we will experience inequality, unemployment and other challenges.
"The quick way of trying to resolve this problem is through social grants and freebies to our children but our children don't need freebies, our children need opportunities," he said.
He stated that it was important for them to create opportunities so that learners could survive on their own using the skills learnt from the kind of schools they were creating.
"If we can't get education right, we will not get the country right. If we can't get education right, we will not get the economy right. If we can't get education right we will never get the skills of the country right," said Lesufi.
He said the dream of having such schools started a long time ago and it was supported by the education officials.
In encouraging learners to develop their skills further, the MEC said that the Nuclear School they built in Tshwane was doing wonders and its learners were producing products that were used by cars to store petrol at a lower temperature.
"If you pour petrol in your car even if it's hot, your car will not explode. The product assists the car to keep the petrol in a good and cool environment. We are proud of our learners in the SoS who are learning how to produce the product," he added.
Lesufi said they also have an aviation school where children are taught to fly planes in Ekurhuleni.
"We said we can’t be next to an international airport and not have a school of aviation," he added.
He tasked his team to launch another school that would specialise in energy.
"You can try fix it or you can throw money at Eskom but we need another school of specialisation in energy and train those children how to go fix Eskom. That is what we need to do now. We will be launching a school of energy so that we can prepare these children to fix Eskom forever for all of us," he said.
Lesufi said it was amazing that a number of companies wanted to partner with the programme. He said that tech-giant Samsung were already teaching children how to fix Samsung products and were receiving a certificate in electronics.
“Even if they cannot succeed in matric, they will fix those gadgets," he said.
He urged teachers to up their game and make sure that the 2022 results were better than the previous academic year. He also told learners to respect teachers in class.
Lesufi addressed the growing trend of teachers entering relationships with their learners. He warned teachers, especially male teachers that their pupils were children and not their partners.
kamogelo.moichela@inl.co.za
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