West Coast College is a public Further Education and Training (FET) College where you will gain a meaningful qualification to gain access to the world of work; become an entrepreneur; or enter university, depending on subject choices.

The college offers integrated theoretical and practical experience; and exposure to your chosen industry. It provides you with an opportunity to make a career change with the skills you gain.

COLLEGE PROGRAMMES

• National Certificate Vocational (NCV) accredited programmes
• Learnership Programmes
• Short Skills Programmes
• Job Placement Assistance for NCV students
• Student Support Services
• Academic Support Programmes
• Sport and Recreation Programmes
• Transport and Accommodation (conditions apply)

BACKGROUND

West Coast College consisted of several small satellites, many of which were merged in 1999 and officially declared as an FET College in 2003.

West Coast College was the smallest and youngest FET College in the Western Cape formed from five discrete entities. Unlike other colleges that were formed around the hub of an existing technical college, existing systems, and capacity to manage, govern and administer their institutions, our systems had to be established from scratch.

The Atlantis Campus was originally established in the 1980s as the Atlantis Technical Institute. In 1993 the campus became part of the Protea College. The campus finally merged with the West Coast College during 2002.

The Citrusdal Campus opened for the first time in January 1999 as the Citrusdal Center for Further Education and Training. It was established by WCED as one of the first Further Education and Training centers and was first part of the Tygerberg College. It became part of the West Coast FET College in 2002.

The campus started as a small campus but is steadily growing and is now serving the students from the Cederberg area - from Lamberts Bay and Clanwilliam to the Bergrivier-area including Porterville, Piketberg, Goedverwacht and Piket-Bo-Berg.

The Malmesbury campus opened its doors for the first time in January 2005, whilst the Vredenburg campus, formerly known as the Westlake College, became part of West Coast College as we know it today in August 1999.

Vredenburg is the first FET College in South Africa to be awarded the prestigious title of International Welding School of Excellence. This project is a joint initiative of the Western Cape Education Department (WCED), Department of Labour, Energy Seta, Merseta and other role-players in the industry.

The Vredendal Campus opened its doors for the first time in 1997 for engineering students from the district. In September 1998 the campus moved to bigger buildings, due to the rapid growth of students.

In the first year of NCV implementation in 2007, West Coast FET College managed to register above the required target of 622 National Certificate Vocational students.

We achieved our targets and managed to implement the programmes against all the challenges that were prevalent in the first year of NCV implementation. So successful West Coast proved to be that WCED and the national Department of Education approved higher targets for the college for 2008. West Coast College is now one of the biggest colleges in terms of the National Certificate (Vocational) intake!