Some training tools for technical schools

The future of the automotive industry rests with the youth as they will carry everything forward … Hyundai Automotive South Africa and one of its business partners and suppliers, Mayfair Gearbox, have donated 50 gearboxes to be used for the training of motor mechanics.

Michael Rohde, after-sales director at Hyundai, notes: “The purpose of this donation is to assist Gauteng’s Department of Education in its programme to expand and enhance the subject of motor mechanics at technical high schools.”

The 50 gearboxes will be distributed from the Elspark Technical High School, in Boksburg, to 39 other schools in Gauteng. They were received by the school’s principal, Dries du Preez, and Don Haripersad, director of Further Education and Training at the Gauteng Education Department.

Haripersad lauded the initiative to donate technical training material, such as the gearboxes, to the schools’ training programmes. “It will go a long way to assist us with the drive to get 40 schools to offer the subject motor mechanics, from next year, for grades 10 to 12,” he emphasises.

Haripersad adds that Du Preez and his team of teachers have a passion for technical education, making it an excellent venue at which to hand over the gearboxes. “We want learners to feel that technical training is ‘sexy’ – we want to change the old perception that motor mechanics and technicians are ‘grease monkeys’,” he points out. “That is why we have to look at resources such as this to give substance to the training of our technical learners and to make the subject more attractive.”