Learn the trade on the tools
An independent artisan college in Bellville. Four trades, four bays, and 1 800 hours on the machines before anybody hands you a certificate. Intakes every February and July.
Apply for the next intakeFour trades, four bays
We have turned down every request to add a fifth. These four are the ones the workshops around Bellville, Parow and Blackheath actually phone us about.
Welding and boilermaking
Arc, MIG and TIG over nine months, plate and pipe, with a coded welder standing behind the booth. Nine months is short because the hours are long.
Fitting and turning
Lathe, mill and bench over twelve months. Setup and measurement come first — nobody here touches a cutting tool until they can read a micrometer without arguing about it.
Electrical installation
Domestic and industrial reticulation, twelve months, wired on live boards and tested the way an inspector will test it. The theory is taught next to the board, not in a hall.
Diesel mechanics
Twelve months on two teaching engines and whatever the yards drop off. Strip it, measure it, rebuild it, run it. Fault-finding starts in the second month.
Why there is a workshop here and not a classroom
Ambag started in 2008 in one rented bay off Voortrekker Road with two lathes, a stick welder and eleven school-leavers from Bishop Lavis who could not get an apprenticeship anywhere because nobody would take them on green.
The shortage is not new and it is not complicated. The workshops on this side of the N1 need artisans who can already strike an arc, read a drawing and set a job up on a machine without being watched. Too many places hand out a certificate to people who have done none of those things. We built the opposite of that: a workshop with an office attached, where the theory is taught beside the job it explains and every learner is on the tools by the end of the first week.
Nobody learns welding off a projector. You get a bay, a booth, a bench and a locker, and you stay in them until the work is right.
18
Years running, from one rented bay on Voortrekker Road to eleven bays and a machine shop behind them.
2 940
Apprentices through the bays since 2008. Andries still greets most of them by name in the Shoprite queue.
4
Trades taught. Four is not a starting point, it is the number we have decided to be good at.
81%
In a paying job or an indentured apprenticeship within six months of finishing, across the last three intakes.
Who is in the bays with you
Coded welder, twenty-six years on pressure vessels and in two Cape Town shipyards. He can mark a bad weld from across the bay and he is almost never wrong. Opens the booth at 06h30 for anyone who wants the extra hour.
Served her time at Transnet Engineering in Salt River, then ran the machine shop at a Bellville pump works for nine years. Spends a full fortnight on setup and measurement before anyone is allowed near a cutting tool.
Master electrician, wireman's licence since 1999, fifteen years of domestic and industrial reticulation across the northern suburbs. Writes our theory notes himself and marks them himself.
Came off the fleet workshop at a haulage yard in Parow. Keeps the two teaching engines running, the hand tools shadowed on the board, and his bay tidier than anyone else in this building.
Ten minutes in the welding booth
Filmed on an ordinary Tuesday morning with the second-years. No narration and no music — it is what the room actually sounds like.
What they say afterwards
I wrote matric at Bishop Lavis and then sat at home for two years. Nine months here and I was cutting plate at a tank yard in Blackheath. My mother still has that first payslip on the fridge.
Nomvula made me strip and reset the same job four times before she would sign it off. I was gatvol at the time. On the trade test I did not think twice about it.
We have taken eleven of their people. They arrive knowing how to read a drawing and how to behave in a workshop, which is more than I can say for most of the CVs on my desk.
I paid it off over ten months and nobody once made me feel small about it. The office sent me a statement every single month so I always knew exactly what was still owing.
The questions the office gets every day
What do I need to get in?
Grade 9 with maths, an ID, and you must be sixteen by the first day of the intake. That is the whole list. We do not ask for matric and we do not look at symbols. There is a two-hour bench and numeracy assessment on the Saturday before each intake and that is what we go on. If you do not pass it we will tell you exactly what to work on and you can sit it again at the next intake for nothing.
What does it cost, in rand?
Welding and boilermaking is R38 500 for the nine-month programme. Fitting and turning is R46 000, electrical installation R44 000 and diesel mechanics R42 000, all twelve months. Add R1 200 registration and R2 400 for the PPE pack. Those are the only numbers on the page — no separate materials fee, no exam fee, and no charge to rewrite a module.
Do I need my own tools?
No. Every machine, every consumable and every measuring instrument in this building belongs to the college and stays here. What you buy is the PPE pack — overalls, safety boots, gloves, and a welding helmet if you are in the welding stream — and that is the R2 400, and it is yours to keep. Most people start buying their own hand tools halfway through, and we will tell you honestly what is worth the money and what is not.
Is placement guaranteed?
No, and be careful of anyone who tells you it is. What we can tell you is that 81% of the people who finished in the last three intakes were in a paying job or an indentured apprenticeship within six months, that we run an employer morning at the end of every programme with about twenty workshops from Blackheath, Parow and Epping in the building, and that we keep phoning on your behalf until you are placed. Nobody falls off the list because the programme ended.
How long is a programme and what are the hours?
Welding and boilermaking runs nine months. The other three run twelve. Days are 07h00 to 15h30, Monday to Thursday, with Friday kept for theory, assessments and finishing jobs that are not right yet. That comes to roughly 1 800 hours on the tools over a twelve-month programme, which is the only number that ever matters at a trade test.
Can I keep working while I study?
Not on the day programme — it is full-time and the machines are not available at night. We run one evening class, Tuesdays and Thursdays 17h30 to 20h30, in welding only, over eighteen months. It costs the same R38 500 and it is hard going after a full shift, but about a third of our welders have come through it.
Can I pay it off? Do you take NSFAS?
You can pay it off monthly over the length of the programme, interest free, and the office sends a statement every month so you always know what is outstanding. We are not an NSFAS institution. We do hold four fully funded seats per intake, paid for by employers who take our people, and applications for those close six weeks before the intake — ask the office for the form.
Is your certificate worth anything to an employer?
The programme prepares you for the trade test at an accredited trade test centre, and we book and pay for your first attempt. The certificate that matters at the end of all this is the red seal, not ours. What ours does is get you through the door for the interview, and the workshops on this side of the N1 know what it means because we have been sending them people for eighteen years.
Enrol, or come and look first
Fill this in and someone from the office will phone you back inside two working days.