The Erasmus project, Centres of Vocational Excellence (CoVE) in Climate Smart Agriculture in South Africa, celebrated its halfway mark with the CoVE South Africa Conference in Paarl on 15 October 2024.
This European Union funded initiative is aimed at assisting TVET colleges to form local CoVE hubs which will support farmers and assist students to become responsive, digitally skilled, and sustainable-oriented sector professionals. The conference was followed by a series of training workshops during the rest of the week.
The first half of the project was focused on training workshops bringing the EU-CoVE concept into the South African context and using these hubs to link the colleges to the industry. Important milestones reached to date, amongst others, were the launch of the three regional CoVE hubs at Boland, West Coast and Lovedale in March, and the signing of the Letters of Intent with the respective stakeholders.
The conference was hosted by Casidra (SOC) Limited and was attended by delegates from Boland, Lovedale, and West Coast Colleges, AgriColleges International, Stellenbosch University (SU), Mendel University (Ceczh Republic) and Maastricht University (Netherlands).
In his opening address, Prof. Burtram Fielding, Dean of the SU Faculty of Science , emphasised the importance of collaboration between the different educational institutions.
On a regional level the project-related activities for the next six months were shared by the respective colleges followed by a workshop session on how these activities can be supported on a national level. The day was concluded by a tour and celebration dinner at the Klein Goederust Boutique Winery.
During the rest of the week the training workshops focused on the following topics: cultural diversity; EU-values; leadership strategies and skills; and project management and monitoring. These workshops were held at the AgroHub and the Stellenbosch University Water Institute (SUWI) as well as Casidra (SOC) Limited. The delegates were also introduced to innovative greenhouse technologies during an excursion trip to the HortiDemoCentre at SU's Faculty of AgriSciences.
For more information related to the project, contact Manuel Jackson at jacksonm@sun.ac.za
