SOUTH WEST GAUTENG COLLEGE BIDS FAREWELL TO PRINCIPAL DAN NKOSI
FAREWELL TO MR NKOSI
Amidst the Corona Virus (Covid 19) pandemic South West Gauteng TVET College (SWGC) bid farewell to Mr Dan Nkosi the Principal of the college after serving more than 16 years and being directly involved with education in South Africa for 32 years. He took early retirement, when the government implemented Early Retirement Without Reduction of Benefits.
After qualifying as a Teacher, he taught English and History and later Business Economics at Rivoni High School in Benoni for ten years, with good results after which, in 1998 he was appointed Rector of then Tlamoha Technical College in Kwa-Thema now known as Kwa-Thema Campus of Ekurhuleni East TVET College. It was in this capacity that he also served as Secretary of the Gauteng Technical College Transformation Forum, which culminated in the merger of Technical colleges in the country.
Mr Dan Nkosi assumed his position of Principal and Chief Executive Officer of the SWGC, which is the second biggest TVET College in SA, in terms of enrolments in Ministerial programmes of NCV and Report 191 in June of 2003 and he submerged and immersed himself in the task in which he was given. He was also the convenor of the Gauteng Chapter of the South African College Principals Organization (SACPO) during this time.
By the year, 2015, Mr Dan Nkosi saw the college’s enrolments grow multi-fold, exceeding 32000 enrolments and putting it among the biggest colleges in the country. Due to funding shortcomings and a clear directive from the Department for colleges to align their enrolments with available funds, the college began deliberately moderating its enrolments, with all the difficulties that went with it and for the year 2019, the enrolments were at just over 28000, which still put the college among the biggest in the country.
Apart from the Recapitalisation Project which started in 2007 and assisted in infrastructure and facilities improvement in colleges, Mr Dan Nkosi had also saw to it that the college embarked on its own self-funded infrastructure and facilities improvement and expansion initiative between the years 2013-2017.
In one of his closing remarks, Mr Dan Nkosi said that it is a huge privilege and honour to have assisted and led in setting up of a beautiful dream and voyage with its building blocks. He further went on to say that “Together, we have made SWGC a strong and formidable brand, a stable institution which is financially secured and trusted by society.
By Sabelo Tshabalala
