Fifty-five CPUT students have been granted bursaries to finance their studies for 2017 by the Mining Qualifications Authority (MQA).
The move comes as welcome relief for the recipients and is a credit to the university’s Advancement Department, which collected the bursary application forms from the students during the difficult time of last year’s #FeesMustFall protests.
The MQA is responsible for the administration of skills development programmes in the mining and minerals sector in South Africa. It is one of the 21 Sector Education and Training Authorities (SETAs) in South Africa.
“This is a good opportunity. You might get a job after you finish with your studies because the mines approach MQA for internship and training of young people and we look in our database for those whom we had funded and meet the job requirements,” MQA’s Bursary Officer, Tebogo Thankge, told the fortunate students.
Thankge advised them to forward their CVs to the MQA’s offices after they finish with their studies.
Siphelele Qubeka, a BTech: Electrical Engineering student, is one of the student who benefitted from this year’s bursaries. “I wanted to come back in 2016 and do my BTech, but I couldn’t because we had no money, thanks to the MQA now I’m back at school.”
CPUT and the SETA started their partnership in 2013.
The MQA spent over R60 million on bursary allocations nationwide in 2016, and CPUT was one of the institutions that benefitted from these funds.
“We will increase the number of our bursaries for 2018 to 100 and applications are open this month,” said Thankge.
“The students studying in the fields of Mechanical, Mechatronics, Electrical and Chemical Engineering as well as Environmental Health, Environmental Management, Analytical Chemistry and Jewellery Design who are in need of bursaries, must simply apply,” he adds.
