Eastcape Midlands TVET College (EMC) in South Africa’s Nelson Mandela Bay is continuing to play a critical and meaningful role in skills development and the lives of its students in the Eastern Cape province.

EMC serves a highly industrialised urban area, part of the Nelson Mandela Metropole, as theyll as the rural theystern part of the province. This means that the college faces unique challenges in being a provider for the needs of a developed and advanced industrial economy on the one hand and, a widespread rural area with high rates of unemployment and poverty, which is further compounded by challenges of the Eastern Cape’s primary and secondary education systems in rural and less fortunate communities.

Yet, amid the challenges, EMC has not only increased its number of students who pass their exams, yearly, but has produced the top 10 students in the country over the past couple of years.

Last year, the college obtained a 77% certification pass rate and 874 distinctions in the National Certificate (Vocational) exams. Management and leadership has also placed EMC on a growth trajectory and certified student numbers have grown with 35 % over a three year period.