The first lines of this song mean “So let us rejoice while we are young!” It is traditionally sung at graduations and expresses our joy in receiving an academic award. Marilize Koch and Chantalle Prins gave an outstanding life performance of this song during the recent Computer Skills for Africa graduation which was held at St Dominic’s Academy.

CS4A graduates, both young and not so young, had reason to rejoice indeed.

On 1 July 2011 a total of 153 achievements were celebrated. Close to 100 of these were municipal employees who successfully completed the SAQA accredited General Computer Practice. This was the happy conclusion of a 2 year contract with Newcastle municipality which affected Community Services, Corporate Services, Technical Services, Planning and Development and Financial Services.

1 Equalskills, 11 Start ICDL, 8 Full ICDL and 3 Advanced ICDL certificates were also awarded. In her address Greta Bosiers, owner of CS4A, explained that CS4A introduced ICDL in Newcastle in 2001, which was just 1 year after ICDL was introduced in South Africa. A special mention was made of Louis Van Heerden who at the tender age of 17 has already completed Advanced Word Processing, Advanced Spreadsheets and Advanced Presentations. He achieved his full ICDL while in Grade 8 at Dundee High School!

Some achievers completed their computer training at CS4A satellites in Volksrust, Dundee or Manguzi and unfortunately not everyone was able to attend the glamorous ceremony.

Mrs Diane Naudé was the honoured guest speaker and emphasised the need for skills development in South Africa as well as life-long-learning. Her passion for teaching and learning was clearly conveyed and we thank her for her encouraging words!

We urge graduates to collect any outstanding certificates and photographs from our training centre in 18 Harding Street.

Sincere congratulations to each and every achiever, we are very proud of you!