KH Managing Director Frank Tischner and Aika Drescher, Head of “Vocational Training International” at KH Service- und Wirtschaftsgesdellschaft mbH, have escaped the gray and cold winter in Germany and traveled to southern Africa – not to soak up the sun and warmth (which is done automatically in the summer now prevailing there), but to strengthen and reestablish the vocational training partnerships in Mozambique and South Africa supported by the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ).
The first destination was Maputo, the capital of Mozambique, in order to coordinate the next three years of the vocational training partnership with the Instituto Industrial e Comercial de Matola, the Association for Renewable Energies in Mozambique (AMER), the metal construction company Belutechnica and the representatives of the Ministry in a detailed planning workshop and to plan the next measures. This was preceded by a review mission on behalf of the BMZ, which endorsed the continuation of the vocational training partnership for the next few years. At the end of the detailed planning workshop, the stakeholders signed the implementation agreement.
We then continued to South Africa via Johannesburg to Bloemfontein in the province of Freestate. After six years of partnership with uMfolozi College in Richards Bay, which was successfully concluded in 2022, Frank Tischner, Aika Drescher and KH’s long-term expert on site Thomas Hirl met with the new vocational training partner, Motheo TVET College, to plan cooperation for the next three years here as well. On behalf of the South African partners, the chairwoman of the academic board Prof. Dipiloane Phutsisi and Peter Makae from the school management as well as sequa project manager Christine Wolf participated in the workshop, moderated by Eckard Schleberger, who had already been helpful during the first educational partnership of KH in South Africa. The goal of the planning is to help the college improve demand-driven training with a focus on skilled trades to provide graduates with better employment opportunities and open up prospects for self-employment. Among other things, curricula will be developed to meet the needs of the public and private markets.
Then Frank Tischner has a workshop in Johannesburg and an exchange with the five South African professional associations within the framework of the ISESA initiative founded by the KH on the agenda, and finally a meeting with representatives of the South African Ministry of Education in Pretoria, before returning to cold Germany after very intensive days.
