North West Business 2018 edition

OVERVIEW
Education and training
NWU is a leader in innovative research.
Whether it’s astrophysics, tourism, solar energy or extruder
technology, the North West University and its researchers
are leaders in their fields.
They are also busy: a research unit within the
Faculty of Theology had 103 articles published in accredited journals
in 2016 and Professor Melville Saayman of the Faculty of Economic
and Management Sciences won NWU’s award as most productive
researcher for his often-cited work on tourism. Professor of Astrophysics
and Space Physics Markus Bottcher was given the prestigious task of
chairing the organising committee of an international conference.
Among the many research entities at NWU, there are five chairs
allocated by the South African Research Chairs Initiative (SARChI):
Astrophysics and Space Physics, Coal Research, Biofuels and other
clean alternative fuels, Nuclear Engineering and Early Detection and
Prevention of Cardiovascular Disease in Africa.
The university’s faculties don’t limit themselves to pure research.
Some of the Engineering Faculty’s partnerships illustrate this point.
Partners include Sasol, Eskom, Denel Aviation, Telkom and SAPPI.
Since 2012 the Engineering Faculty has been competing in solar
car challenges. The 2017 challenge saw a car called Naledi travel from
Darwin to Adelaide, powered purely by the sun. The project had
no fewer than 26 partners and sponsors, including the Technology
Innovation Agency and Growthpoint Properties.
North West University (NWU) has more than 65 000 students, with
about 26 000 studying by correspondence. The university's main
campus is at Potchefstroom with satellite campuses at Mmabatho
and Vanderbijlpark.
The Centre for Text Technology (CTexT) conducts research and collects
data on regional languages and is aiming to establish a discipline
called Human Language Technology. The pharmaceutical faculty at
the Potchefstroom campus of the North West University is regarded
as a national leader.
The University of South Africa (Unisa) has three branches in North
West, at Rustenburg, Potchefstroom and Mmabatho.
Colleges
Technical Vocational and Educational Training colleges teach skills
that are relevant to the work place. In the North West, the mining
sector needs engineers and artisans.
Mining companies provide
some training in these disciplines,
but TVET colleges bear the chief
responsibility.
The National Department of
Higher Education and Training
(DHET) declared the period starting
in 2014 as "The Decade of the
Artisan" with a goal of producing
30 000 per year by 2026. The
current figure is about 13 000.
North West has three TVET
colleges with several campuses
each. Vuselela TVET College has its
headquarters in Klerksdorp, where
there is also an accredited trade
test centre. There are a further four
campuses: Jouberton Centre for
Engineering Studies; Matlosana
Campus; Potchefstroom Centre
for ICT; Taung Campus.
Orbit TVET College has three
sites, Rustenburg, Mankwe and
Brits, with about 15 000 students
overall. The Rustenburg campus
of Orbit College hosts a Microsoft
IT Academy while the Mankwe
campus offers automotive training,
the result of a partnership
between the Manufacturing,
Engineering and Related SETA
(MersSETA), Lelethu Training and
Ford South Africa.
In 2016 Orbit TVET College
took delivery of an electronics
academy from sponsor Samsung.
Located on the Mankwe campus,
and in partnership with the
MerSETA, the academy has eve-
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