7th annual Career Day and Expo
Grade 11 and 12 pupils were given the opportunity to interact with various Corporate companies , Government , Colleges and Universities during the Soweto Career Expo.
Pupils got a chance to find out about different career opportunities during the seventh annual Soweto Career day and Expo held last Thursday and Friday at Communal Hall in Orlando East.
Soweto Career Day and Expo is an interactive platform for corporate, government, colleges, universities, private colleges, pupils, unemployed youth and graduates to share information about all the career awareness and development initiatives like bursaries, loans, internships, employment opportunities, further education training and skills development programmes.
The Soweto Career Expo seemed to be bigger and better with 47 exhibitors, SABC OB Vans included.
Pupils also got a chance to experience some career opportunities for instance Tsogo Sun gave pupils the opportunity to see what it entails to be a chef.
The project director of the expo, Kgupi Gunguluza, said that each year this event aims to be bigger and better and that this year was no acceptation.
“We managed to gather major companies all in one space. It was a great opportunity for the pupils to ask questions and to accumulate information about possible career options.
“Some of the companies brought practical explainations of what it is that they do so that pupils will have a clear example of what is been exhibited,” said Gunguluza.
One of the companies that were exhibiting was Cassidian Optronics a mechanical and optical engineering company.
Angie Mdluli the transformation manager said that their company has leanership and graduate programmes but the challenge that they have is that there are few pupils who are doing pure maths at matric level.
“We need more engineers in our country, especially black and female engineers. Pupils must not undermine themselves they must do pure maths in matric – that is the only way we will have more engineers in this country. We end up having to hire people from outside the country because of the lack of qualified engineers,” she said.
Phindile Nkomo, a pupil, said that she gained a lot of knowledge during the expo.
“I am still not sure what I want to study next year but at least I have accumulated plenty of knowledge and I can make an informed decision,” she said.
