GrandWest hosted the FutureMe’s World of Work career festival on Thursday 31 August, giving learners insight into possible career opportunities.
Daniel Galloway, general manager at FutureMe Foundation, says the World of Work festival is a career expo designed for Grade 10 and 11 learners to come and check out what work is available for them and about career choices when they finish school.
“What we do is we gather a whole bunch of corporate partners to come together and they are from a vast range of different industries to let the young people know what they do and what possibilities there are for them.”
Unemployment crisis
According to Galloway, expos like these are important because the country has an obvious unemployment issue and crisis.
About 3 500 young people attended the expo, along with 32 exhibitors at this annual event which takes place once a year.
“It started in 2016, and always happens around August in Cape Town, next year it will be in Durban and Port Elizabeth as well,” says Galloway.
Chishelda Dyers from GrandWest said education is one of GrandWest’s focus areas.
“It’s very important to GrandWest to partner up with FutureMe and provide learners with the opportunity to get more informed about available career opportunities.”
Terence Zeeman from the provincial education department’s metro central education district, said: “We have a responsibility towards our kids, there are only a select few who are exposed to robotics, so as the education department we must be able to offer that to every child.”
According to Zeeman they are prototyping and training teachers and learners. Hopefully next year they are going to introduce coding and robotics to all schools.
