West Coast College

West Coast College is a TVET college in the Western Cape. It is run from a central office in Malmesbury and has five campuses: Atlantis, Citrusdal, Malmesbury, Vredenburg and Vredendal. It was formed in 2002 by merging several smaller centres for further education and training, and it took the designation of TVET college in 2015.

Teaching is in person on campus. Applications and registration are handled online, but the college does not describe any distance or fully online programmes.

The main qualifications are the National Certificate (Vocational), taught at three levels, and the semester-based Report 191 programmes at N4 to N6, which lead towards a National Diploma once the required work experience is done. NC(V) fields include hospitality, tourism, office administration, management, engineering and related design, electrical infrastructure construction, education and development, primary health, transport and logistics, finance economics and accounting, and programming and robotics. The N4 to N6 fields are business management, farming management, financial management, hospitality and catering services, public management and tourism. Not every field is taught on every campus, so the campus matters when choosing. The college also offers apprenticeships, learnerships, skills programmes and trade-testing short courses. A pre-vocational programme at two campuses helps learners who narrowly miss NC(V) entry; placement is by referral and cannot be applied for directly.

Entry for the NC(V) is Grade 9, and a completed Grade 12 is needed for N4 to N6. Applicants still waiting for matric results may apply, but final results must be uploaded before final admission. New students do a career guidance and numeracy and literacy assessment as part of applying, which the college says is meant to help rather than exclude.

Intakes work as a yearly cycle. Students apply first, are selected and notified, and then register online, with registration at the start of the academic year. Returning students must confirm they are coming back by a set yearly deadline.

Fees are published as one fee document for the year on the college's own site, not per programme. NSFAS is the main way students pay, and new students are expected to apply to it and obtain a reference number before registering. The college also refers to a bursary fund of its own. Residences exist at Citrusdal, Vredenburg and Vredendal and are applied for separately; Malmesbury accommodation is limited to Financial Management students.