Mahube Secondary School Acting Principal Matshidiso Tshaka is very pleased by the career expo session conducted by the Walter Sisulu Foundation for learners of her school on Saturday.
“I feel super excited because often our learners don’t get exposure regarding career choices so what the Walter Sisulu Foundation did to us is beyond our expectations,” said Tshaka.
“Several careers have been exhibited here for the learners and as a top-achieving school in terms of Matric results in Mamelodi this initiative will come in handy for the learners and their parents so that they must not be stereotyped when making career choices,” enthused Tshaka.
“In most cases a Grade 12 learner doesn’t know what career path they want to follow and upon looking at the curriculums of institutions of higher learning they merely choose courses that sound similar to what they are doing in Grade 12, this without having enough information as to what the course they are choosing entails in actual fact,” explained Tshaka.
“This is why in most cases students spend most of the time hopping from one course to another before due to lack of prior information regarding career choices,” she said.
“We would be grateful if we could have a career expo of this nature annually at our school and I am hoping that other companies would also come on board to exhibit careers that are available at their entities,” she said.
Chief Operations Officer at the Walter Sisulu Foundation Environmental Centre in Mamelodi East Naomi Rabothata told Tshwane Talks that the Mahube Secondary School was chosen to benefit from the career expo as the foundation has a working relationship with the school regarding other programmes.
“We have realised that learners often choose wrong streams of subjects regarding the careers that they eventually want to follow and today we would like to correct that mistake with the career expo we are conducting at the school,” said Rabothata.
“We also want to introduce learners to different career fields which they can explore and today we are concentrating on Grade 9s, 10s, and 11s,” explained Rabothata.
“We have planned this career expo with Balwin Properties and their finance, legal and Human Resources teams are here and we also have Sanbi and the automotive zone based at SAMCOR and we also have GDAD, and Wits RHI,” she said.
“This is the second time we are conducting a career expo of this nature; the first one was held at the Walter Sisulu Foundation in Mamelodi East last year but we experienced challenges regarding transporting learners to the centre as we are an NPO, so we decided that this year we will conduct the career expo at a venue which is in the community so that learners can come in large numbers,” she said.
“The learners are excited about what has been exhibited to them and my message to parents is that they must allow their kids to make their own career choices because in the long run they will see only beautiful things and next year we hope that this event will he bigger and better,” she said.
15-year-old Nthabiseng Ralethe who is in Grade 9 wants to do science subjects so that she would fulfill her dream to become a medical doctor and said the career expo must actually be held twice a year.
Keletso Mphela who is also 15 years old decried the fact that scientists were not part of the panel that exhibited career choices to learners.
“Career expo hasn’t been helpful to me at all,” she said boldly.
Thato Moloto who is 17 years old and in Grade 9 said career expo has helped him a lot and enlightened him about the many careers that are available out there.
Moloto wants to be an artist but is disappointed that artists were not brought in to be part of the panellists.
Karabo Matjeke who is in Grade 9 and is 16 years old wants to be a security guard to protect the community from criminals.
He said his father is also a security guard.
Aiden Nekanda who is 14 years old and in Grade 9 wants to be a pilot because he wants to fly people to different parts of the world.
He advised other learners to attend career expo events so that they don’t miss out on careers that are available out there.