Pretoria - More than 5 000 youths have been accepted to the South African National Defence Force's (SANDF) Military Skills Development System (MSDS) and start their six months of training this weekend.
The MSDS programme is designed to inject young, professionally skilled soldiers into the SANDF and to develop a sustainable pool of highly trained, disciplined and skilled personnel for the government sector in the main and the private sector.
The 2011 MSDS recruits will be divided into the four Arms-of-Services of the SANDF, including the SA Army, SA Air Force, SA Navy and SA Military Health Service.
When they successfully complete the programme and graduate, the recruits will be transferred to their various areas of knowledge to specialise in aviation, healthcare, engineering, mechanics and many others disciplines in the SANDF.
Minister of Defence and Military Veterans, Lindiwe Sisulu, accompanied by the SANDF Acting Chief Lieutenant General, Themba Matanzima, and Acting Secretary for Defence, Mthobisi Zondi, will on Sunday welcome the recruits, who are the first intake for 2011.
Speaking ahead of the event, Sisulu said the SANDF had become a training institution of choice to employers like the South African Police Service, Transnet, aviation industry and engineering.
"We are able to take in young people, train and empower them with necessary skills and make them available to different sectors. This is the department's contribution to skills development," Sisulu said.
The SANDF has over the past three years empowered a number young people with various skills, with some automatically absorbed into the SANDF, with others joining the Reserve Force or going to other departments and private sector companies.
