Community Action Africa (CAA) and Nelson Mandela and Walter Sisulu universities hosted a career guidance expo at Buffalo Metro Inner City High School on Friday, August 19.
CAA director Musa Sebugwawo said the expo, whose theme was Connection to Your Future, was the fourth annual event to take place in East London.
Sebugwawo said its purpose was to help high school learners who struggled with subject choices and to provide them with information concerning possible careers. “They were struggling with subject choices, and they would n ’t be able to continue with career choices based on the subjects they were doing in high school. They asked us for career guidance before they reach grade 12,” he said.
The programme was attended by a number of people who had graduated from it. Among them were Dr Qiniso Mkhatshwa, who works at MSC Veterinary Services, and Anathi Xoxo a law graduate and candidate attorney. They shared their journeys and experiences to academic success with the grade 9s.
Dean of the faculty of engineering and technology at WSU, Prof Farhad Aghdasi, gave the keynote address, “Schools into the Future”. “In grade 9 they need to know what subjects to take.”
A Centre of Excellence High School learner, Yondela Gqetywa, said her dream of becoming an actress one day had changed since attending the career guidance expos. She said she wanted to be a gynaecologist. “The career expo was to open our eyes to career choices. At first I wanted to pursue acting but now I’ve realised that I have to look at the opportunities, and then I realised I don’t like acting because there are already a lot of people doing it.”
Another grade 9 learner from Centre of Excellence, Verrell Wiggett, said he learnt a lot from the career expo. “Basically their main aim, from what I can see, is that they are trying to help us achieve our goals in life and to further our passions in what we would love to do. I want to achieve my goal of being an astrophysicist. I know what subjects I have to study – pure maths, physical science – but the only problem is that they don’t provide astronomy in my school.”
