Some of South Africa’s newest engineers and technicians are celebrating their entry into skilled employment following a training programme with engineering and infrastructure company Siemens in SA.
Siemens commits to training South Africans as part of its contracts for work on SA power stations and other infrastructure. Special attention is given to local communities, women and people with economic and educational disadvantages.
Under the national Accelerated and Shared Growth Initiative (ASGI-SA) scheme, Siemens trains engineers, electrical technicians and artisans. The ASGI-SA Skills Development Programme is a partnership training programme between Siemens and Eskom. Skills development programmes are project specific and they are linked to Eskom power stations, including Kusile, Medupi, Duvha, Ingula and Hendrina.
The Automotive Industry Development Centre (AIDC) implements the training programme on behalf of Siemens. Siemens monitors implementation and the quality of training offered to its candidates. Once qualified the new engineers are employed either at Siemens or with customers of Siemens.
On Friday 12 February, more than sixty newly-skilled men and women celebrated their graduation with engineering degrees, diplomas, trade certificates and national certificates. They will now enter the SA economy with the confidence and skills to build careers in engineering.
“SA has a severe shortage of engineering and technical skills so we are working hard to train and develop people appropriate for a developing industrial economy,” explains Clifford Klaas, executive director and head of human resources for Siemens in southern and East Africa.
Siemens’ new graduates include two engineers with a BSc in Electrical Engineering, two project managers, 25 technicians with a national diploma in electrical engineering, 27 artisans with a higher certificate, and nine candidates with learnership certificates NQF Level 3-4.
One of the new Siemens graduates is Jaquolyn Mononyane from Mpumalanga. She matriculated in 2008 and did electrical engineering at the Tshwane University of Technology (TUT).
Now, Jaquolyn is on a further two-year Siemens graduate training programme and studying for a BTech in electrical engineering. As part of her training, she has been to work on the Sere wind farm in the Western Cape.
In 2015 Jaquolyn became the first female supervisor in Siemens’ North Riding facility. She is currently a supervisor in the facility’s medium voltage division, a job which was previously done by a skilled German worker.
In 2014 Siemens invested R40m in skills development with a total of 3900 training days. More than 80% of its trainees are black South Africans.
Siemens’ support for ASGI-SA is one of several initiatives to promote skills development. The company also sends South African engineers, artisans and project managers to work and train in Germany, and to get live experience on international project sites. Some of them have already returned home and taken over skilled positions from German staff working in SA factories.
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