Young people encouraged to follow careers in Health Sciences

Department of Health 2019/11/13 - 22:00



Teboho Matshatsha

In an effort to encourage young people in the province to pursue careers in the Health Sciences, the Gauteng Department of Health yesterday initiated a session between National Student Financial Aid Scheme (NSFAS) and Sekano Ntoane Secondary School in Soweto.

The objective of the visit which was conducted together with the Department of Education and Economic Development was to help pupils to register online and also offer them information on all the procedures to follow when applying for financial assistance.

“MEC Bandile Masuku made a commitment during the National School Health Week to assist learners to register online. Learners will be able to go and study in the higher institutions without any financial struggles. We also encourage learners to consider careers in the Health Sciences to assist with the global shortage of health care workers”, said Portfolio Coordinator for Youth Development in the office of the MEC Kamogelo Goseitsiwe  

“NSFAS offers an opportunity for learners to access any public higher institution of their choice. It understands that some learners are not privileged enough to afford education in these institutions, hence NSFAS covers intuition fees, food and accommodation with zero interest to pay in the future,” said NSFAS representative Tshepo Nkosi.

Deputy Principal Goodman Mashinini said that it is overwhelming that one of the school’s former learners Dr Bandile Masuku is lending a hand to the school. “This serves as a motivation to our learners that they can be able to make it as well regardless of the challenges they encounter on a daily basis. We have set a benchmark as a school that we want to achieve more than 90% matric pass rate this year and internal programmes were implemented to reach the target”.

“Some of us come from poor backgrounds and don’t have access to internet. We are very happy for such initiative and help that we got from everyone who was involved. Now we know that we are on the system and our documents are uploaded and we can prepare ourselves for next year,” said Lesego Hadebe, a matriculant at the school.

 

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