SKILLS DEVELOPMENT
easier by the poor quality of schoollevel teaching in maths and science in the average South African school; this has weakened the overall preparedness of university entrants for the demands of engineering courses – as I have witnessed in my role as an external examiner.” Manglin Pillay, CEO of the South African Institution of Civil Engineering( SAICE) points out that to develop a civil engineer, it starts at primary school, where the first seeds are sown.“ The system and process of professional engineering development starts at basic education and continues until professional registration( and beyond) – this is some 20 years,” he says. In her research, Masondo-Mkhize spoke with several engineering students and asked what opportunities the consulting engineering industry offered them. According to the students, while there are hundreds of graduates, jobs advertised can only accommodate a minute fraction of the stream of graduates.“ From the pool of graduates that are leaving university, versus job opportunities, there is a significant imbalance,” she adds. This is exacerbated by many consultancy firms requiring at least a couple of years’ experience from their applicants.“ So where do you get this experience, when holiday work or in-house training are often viewed as insufficient experience?” she asks.
Millennials now constitute an average of one third( 30 %) of the South African workforces and Gen Z is starting to emerge in the workplace. While the multigenerational workforce has become a very real challenge, it brings with it potential assets for the peopledriving element of business. For both these new entrants to the workplace there is a common drive to learn and develop along with a will to grow into new roles within the business. Something that applies to all young graduates however, is mentorship, or the lack of it. It is mentorship that could best develop skills. What better way to get on-the-job training than by learning alongside an experienced professional? Companies need to focus on the critical succession path within their business by ensuring the transfer of organisational skills and the empowerment of new leaders. However, there is a marked paucity of available mentors. Howell observes,“ Our skills shortage can be described as a‘ missing middle’ in the ranks of our civil engineering professionals – where there are not enough practitioners with 20 to 25 years of experience, who should be running our large and important projects. Ideally, their older and more experienced colleagues – many of whom are now approaching retirement – could be on hand with specialised input if necessary.
“ Instead, we are dealing with a situation where this crucial middle level of principal engineers is thin on the ground, and the weight of responsibility is often falling on the older echelons of the sector – or even on the younger ones who don’ t really have enough experience. In theory, these more mature, retirement-age professionals should now mentor and train the newly registered professional engineers into their work roles,” he adds. He continues,“ The skills shortage is threatening to erode one of the core elements of what civil engineering stands for in modern society, making it more vital than ever that all stakeholders commit themselves to the highest possible standards of professional excellence.”
Maintaining a standard
Howell reiterates the importance of standards and adds that,“ there is no short cut to becoming a civil engineer. The nature of what we do leaves no room for half-measures or underachievement; physical structures that are not designed and built to the highest standard will potentially fail and can cost lives. That is why the professional is so closely scrutinised and regulated. It has therefore been with dismay – and frankly, some dread – that the engineering fraternity has witnessed the disruptions at the Engineering Council of South Africa( ECSA), the recruitni. com
A shortage of mentors within civil engineering remains a concern in South Africa
22- CEC January 2018