From sheep slaughter to prisons on study tour

PHOTO: Kouga municipal foreman Johan Tegmann shares the ins and outs of water purification witn Environmental Health students from NMMU.

From sheep slaughter to prisons on study tour

IT takes a strong stomach, an eye for detail and a mind that absorbs information like a sponge to carve a niche in the Environmental Health industry.

That is the big lesson 34 Environmental Health students from the Nelson Mandela Metro University took home with them on Friday, October 14, after a five-day study tour in the Kouga region.

Willem Michau, a food hygiene lecturer at NMMU, said the study tour was an annual tradition stretching back almost 15 years.

“It’s a wonderful opportunity for our students to see how what they are learning, is applied in the real world,” he said.

“We are very grateful to the Kouga Municipality who has been our partners in the programme since the very beginning. Not only does the municipality accommodate us at no cost, they also organise the programme for the week, including visits to major players in the food production industry such as Woodlands Dairy.”

Class representative Thembakazi Nyati said highlights for the students had been watching sheep being slaughtered at a Humansdorp abattoir and inspecting the kitchens, food hall and cells of the Patensie Correctional Centre.

“We’ve learnt that applying regulations in practice is not always as easy as it seems in theory,” she said. “What’s great about having had this experience, is that we can now visualise what we’ve been learning about.”

The tour also included visits to municipal water purification plants, sewerage treatment works and landfill sites.

Kouga acting municipal manager, Sidney Fadi, said the municipality was proud of its ongoing association with NMMU’s Environmental Health department.

“It is good to see young people studying towards qualifications that are needed in South Africa. We would like to see this group go far and look forward to working with them when they are professionals in their field.”