Engineering: issues, challenges and opportunities for development ...

ENGINEERING CAPACITY: EDUCATION, TRAINING AND MOBILITYFigure 6: The home towns of civil engineering students in 2005Students permunicipality0123-5>5Game Reservesand DMAsCentres with tertiaryinstitutions offeringcivil engineeringWorkplace trainingFew young people were found to be gaining adequate workplacetraining, as there is a serious shortage of civil engineeringstaff in the production age group (Figure 7).As a result, few who are currently employed have time to brief,supervise and check on trainees. This means that few younggraduates can enter the field and make progress.Figure 7: The age distribution of civil engineering staff in South Africain 2005635955Since the retirement age was generally reduced during thequiet years, many retired engineers were found to be relativelyyoung, fit and ready for new challenges. A major project wastherefore mounted to recruit retired engineers and pair themwith two or three students and graduates in order to tacklethe many projects for which there is inadequate capacity. Thiswin-win model has enthusiastically been adopted and fundedby the South African Government as a result of motivationemanating from the research. This initiative is not only assistingwith the acceleration of service delivery but at the sametime is contributing towards growing a new generation ofengineering professionals. Box below highlights the enormouspotential that exists using such a model.It was also recognized that structured workplace training wasessential to prepare graduates for professional registration. InAge514743393531270 100 200 300 400 500 600 700323