Another former student, who studied carpentry in Waikato, is pleased that the sector is getting a revamp.

Mara Mdunyelwa, originally from Transkei, has been selling shacks for six years along Sheffield Road after studying carpentry in Khayelitsha.

One of the students, Ryan Ramsay, studied carpentry at the academy and doubted he would have got his level 2 qualification without it.

A musician since childhood, Palushang studied carpentry at high school before apprenticing with a guitar maker in Bukavu, in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo.