Eaton heads up maritime school in Jo’burg

The SA Maritime School and Transport College has officially opened a campus in Johannesburg. Based in Braamfontein, it has already enrolled its first students since opening its doors in March this year with a course in international trade and one on cargo handling currently under way. According to Roderick Eaton, who heads up the Johannesburg branch, the move to open a Johannesburg campus has been welcomed by the industry. “Of course there are several other training facilities in Gauteng for the transport and logistics industry, but what makes the SA Maritime school so necessary and unique is that it has much more of a shipping focus.” According to Eaton, the school intends to turn over at least 800 students by 2013 with the figure set to increase as it becomes more established. “As a private higher education and training centre it plays an integral role in the marine, shipping and freight industry, delivering employable people into the market,” he said. “We have a two-pronged approach where we target high school learners to introduce them to our industry so that they can achieve a meaningful qualification of NQF standard and so find meaningful employment. But we also help those who are already employed to further their careers through training.” Eaton said much effort had been put into the school’s units to ensure they were now more holistic. “We don’t just offer the technical aspects but include items such as communication and business ethics into the units to ensure the student is more employable once he leaves the school.” Eaton, who himself was one of the first students of the SA Maritime School in 1988 shortly after it opened its doors in Durban, is joined by two other facilitators, Erwin Scheepers and Vishal Dhanesar, in Johannesburg.