About 100 final-year students sacrificed their September recess to spend time in lecture halls in preparation for life beyond graduation.

CPUT hosted a four-day Employment Readiness Conference during the recess that aimed to be more than just a series of workshops but a powerful investment in the future of students’ employability.

What started as a two-day workshop by the Co-operative Education Unit quickly grew into a full-scale initiative, thanks to collaboration with the Golden Key International Honour Society, student leader Afika Manjati, and support from the Student Counselling department and external partner ORTSA.

The workshop took place at the Chemical Engineering Auditorium and was conducted by ORTSA’s Wesley Pillay. Students started with foundational skills of CV writing, interview preparation, and strategies to manage job-hunting stress. Pillay then guided them through workplace integration, corporate culture, probation, performance management, and building resilience. Standard Bank concluded the programme with a session on financial literacy, teaching essential skills in saving, investing, and money management. Students were given an opportunity to submit their CVs for review and feedback.

“Programmes of this nature foster a high chance of employability, exposing students to essential skills required in industry. The dedication of students over the week was remarkable; despite the conference taking place during recess, they arrived eager, attentive, and fully engaged. Their responsiveness in discussions, exercises, and practical sessions highlighted not just interest, but a genuine commitment to preparing for the future” says David Haarhoff, Administrator in the Co-operative Education Unit.

The Employment Readiness Conference demonstrated the power of collaboration between university departments, student leaders, and external partners. It equipped students with practical knowledge, personal insight, and the confidence needed to step into the professional world.

Written by CPUT News
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The Co-operative Education Unit, at the Centre for Community Engagement and Work Integrated Learning is, once again, hosting the Annual Graduate Fair Exhibition.

This event provides an opportunity for CPUT students to interact with potential employers in a relaxed and fun environment while learning about available graduate employment, experiential learning and bursary opportunities.

This year the exhibition will take place on 28 (09h30 to 16h00) and 29 July (09h00 to 12h00), in the Major Sports Hall on the Bellville Campus.

Busses will be available to transport students from the Cape Town Campus to the Bellville Campus.

We invite all students to come to the exhibition on one of those days.

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CPUT’s Co-operative Education Unit is being recognised on a local and international level for its work and research.

Unit partners were commended for their commitment during the third annual Work Integrated Learning Africa Conference held in Durban. Hosted by The Southern African Society for Co-operative Education (SASCE) the conference awarded Passenger Rail Agency of South Africa and construction company Haw & Inglis for their partnerships with CPUT in providing work placements for students.

CPUT staff members also presented various papers at the conference highlighting the work and research they are doing into cooperative education. These ranged from investigating work integrated learning in teacher education to a paper looking at legitimation code theory for the purpose of making a recommendation to teaching pedagogy.

The Unit’s team members travelled to Durban immediately after an overseas trip to Stuttgart, Germany where they took part in the World Association for Cooperative Education’s Third International Research Symposium on Cooperative and Work Integrated Education. 

There CPUT Cooperative Education Manager Carver Pop was presented with the Best Refereed Research Paper Award as part of a team of international academics.

Pop, Dr Buratin Khampirat of Suranaree University of Technology in Thailand and Dr Suniti Bandaranaike of James Cook University of Australia’s winning paper was called “Efficacy of Work Integrated Learning: Pre and Post Perception among Co-operative Education Students.”

“Winning this through collaborative means on collaborative projects reinforces the notion of being linked into international best practice. Not only as followers of best practice but as establishers of best practice, internationally.

“CPUT can really feel proud of its accomplishment,” said Pop.

Winning in Germany came a year after winning the paper for best refereed researched paper at the WACE annual conference in Chiang Mai, Thailand when he worked with Khampirat on “Labour Market Needs and Graduate Competence: An Examination of the Gap between Employer Expectations and New Engineering Graduate Performance in Thailand.”

Pop pointed out that work integrated learning was one aspect that sets CPUT apart from research based universities and emphasised the importance of establishing the institution as the university of employer’s choice.

“Work integrated learning is not an event in our curriculum, it is the cornerstone of what we do. It’s the institution’s response to a societal reality. Our reality is high unemployment and low youth skills and work integrated learning actually addresses both of those,” he said. 

Written by Theresa Smith
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The Co-operative Education Unit of the Centre for Community Engagement and Work-Integrated Learning (WIL) hosted a successful Student Work Preparedness Workshop focussing on resilience, one of CPUT’s Graduate Attributes.

The Centre promotes effective WIL and community engagement activities to set graduates apart regarding their employability. The series of workshops embarked on this year focused on industry essential skills students drawn from the 21st century skills set required. The Centre Director, Prof Lalini Reddy, stresses the importance of highly interactive workshops for students which promote 4IR technologies together with critical thinking, unity in diversity, cultural tolerance and human values, all essential for preparing students for the future world of work.

David Haarhoff, Project Lead said projects of this nature are imperative for enhancing essential skills once our students are released into the world of work. “As a Centre and Institution, we want our students to be well prepared for their work-integrated learning and employment purposes,” Haarhoff stated. He said the dedication and commitment of students who attended the workshop were commendable, demonstrating their commitment to do better and set themselves apart in the industry.

In this workshop, the Centre collaborated with the Student Counselling, and it was facilitated by Head of Department: Student Counselling, Leanie Brits and Phorogohlo Phala, a psychologist. The joyous and pleasant atmosphere among students is worth mentioning. Students engaged and participated in many activities aligned to the theme of resilience (stress tolerance, creativity, problem-solving) within the workplace and personal leadership development.

The outcomes of the workshop included students' understanding of the concept of resilience, emotional intelligence, managing stress, exploration of the left and right brain and understanding of the brain profile, further to this, Haarhoff stated the emphasis was also placed on self-awareness as a tool to manage stress, personal resilience and identification and applying resilience strategies.

“The voice of students is critical in respect of feedback for workshops like this and it is for this reason that the Centre constantly strives to improve on service offering. The methodology utilised for such feedback is a student post-event survey where students have an opportunity to provide honest feedback, he said.

Haarhoff said the impact is important when embarking on projects and events, “I often ask myself whether projects or events align with our graduate attributes of the institution. Most importantly we have to question whether students will benefit from initiatives of this nature. I undoubtedly can say from the feedback received that our impact is worth noting.”

Certificates of attendance were handed out and students could use this to enhance their CVs when applying for job opportunities.

Written by CPUT News

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