Building Futures in Forestry
Rally Business Consulting's FP&M SETA Learnership Programme
For 40 unemployed young people in Mpumalanga, this year has meant something most South African youth are still waiting for: a real shot at a qualification, a skill and a foot in the door of formal employment.
Rally Business Consulting, in partnership with the Fibre Processing and Manufacturing SETA (FP&M SETA), has been running a 12-month learnership programme aimed squarely at the forestry sector — one of Mpumalanga's biggest employers and one that depends on a steady pipeline of trained, capable workers.
Two Qualifications, One Goal
The programme is split across two nationally recognised qualifications:
GETC: General Forestry (NQF Level 1) — 20 learners
NC: Silviculture (NQF Level 3) — 20 learners
Both are built to produce workers who can step straight into the industry: from conservation and forest maintenance to the hands-on, technical work of managing plantation growth cycles — planting, pruning and everything in between.
From Classroom to Plantation
The learnership runs in two phases. First, four months of classroom-based theory — written assessments, Portfolio of Evidence compilation, group work and role-play exercises that build the kind of decision-making and communication skills textbooks alone can't teach.
Then comes the real test: eight months on working plantations, learning the trade in active forestry operations. It's this shift from lecture hall to living landscape that Rally Business Consulting sees as the heart of the programme — and it shows. All 40 learners completed the full work exposure period, with Training Officer Promise Sibiya noting real, visible growth in confidence and technical ability along the way.
More Than a Qualification
Ask the learners why they signed up and two answers come up again and again: the monthly stipend and the chance at a qualification that actually means something in the job market.
For many, this was their first structured learning experience since leaving school. The stipend alone has changed things at home — some learners are now supporting their families financially for the first time, others have made their first independent purchases, like a mobile phone. Small milestones on paper, but for young people starting with nothing, they're proof of a shift already underway.
The Road Ahead
Forty learners completing a programme at once brings its own challenge: not every graduate can be absorbed into permanent roles immediately and that's a reality across the learnership model nationally, not just at Rally. It's why Rally Business Consulting is committed to working with sector partners to build stronger pathways from qualification to employment.
What's certain is this: 40 young people who started the year without formal qualifications are finishing it with nationally recognised credentials, practical plantation experience and a genuine stake in South Africa's forestry future.
Rally Business Consulting is an accredited training provider delivering SETA-funded learnerships across the forestry sector.
