Engineers will have to co-ordinate with other professionals {writer: Staff reporter}

The Engineering Society of South Africa (ESSA) in August launched the South African Society of Engineering Educators to improve engineering education through collaboration between South African institutions and similar ones worldwide.

Professor Sarah Rajala, dean of the Department of Engineering at the Mississippi Sate University in the United States, said at the launch in Johannesburg that producing enough engineers is critical to society’s ability to solve global challenges such as providing clean water, restoring and improving urban infrastructure, and designing better medicines.

South Africa has an acute shortage of engineers and engineering students, with only one in 3 160 of its population being qualified engineers, in comparison to a ratio of 1:227 in Brazil and 1:157 in India.

The chief executive officer of ESSA Ossie Franks said at the same occasion that about 2 500 people graduated with a four-year engineering degree last year and about 3 500 with a three-year diploma.

Engineers played a key role in the significant changes that took place in the world during the 20th century, and many of the benefits of technological change are universal, but engineers also had a hand in producing many of the grand challenges that society now faces, said Prof. Rajala, who is also past president of the American Society for Engineering Education.

While engineers will be needed to devise solutions, the way they are taught will have to change. They will have to be better equipped to co-operate with people of other professions such as doctors and sociologists.

In addition to engineering and scientific fundamentals, engineers will have to be more aware of political context, business and safety practices, technologically advanced materials and issues such as sustainability and project management, said Prof. Rajala.

Dr Jennie Case, lecturer in Chemical Engineering at the University of Cape Town, said South Africa does not have an ample supply of matriculants with marks good enough to cope with studying engineering.

Research done on first-year engineering students in the 2001 intake showed that 54% of those studying toward a BScEng degree graduated after five years, against only 17% of those studying toward a diploma.

Disaggregated for race, only 32% of students of African decent graduated in five years, compared with 64% whites; and 16% African diploma students compared with 28% whites.

“The conclusion is that we need to do something better with the students we do get,” said Dr Case.

Report on municipalities

A Government Certificate of Competency (GCC) was introduced in South Africa in the early 1920s to ensure safe and proven standards of design, operation and maintenance for engineering of the built environment across industry, utilities and mines.

“However, South Africa does not compare well with international comparative surveys on the overall engineering skills capacity across all disciplines, and this applies to engineers, technologists and technicians,” states a recent report by the firm, Engineer Placements.

The report, entitled “GCC Engineers in municipalities: The case for a skills development intervention”, states that to “comply with the legal requirements… any municipality that has an installed capacity of electrical power plant equal to or greater than 3 000 kilowatts must employ a GCC Engineer in a supervisory capacity. Currently… there are approximately 194 district municipalities that fall into this category.

“The evidence shows that only a few municipalities comply with this requirement, and whilst contravening the OSH [Occupational Health and Safety] Act, this would render them responsible for the early decline in the performance of the assets and for service delivery non-conformance where this depends on the availability and reliability of engineering assets.

“A critical addition to the problem is the crisis in water and sanitation management in municipalities and the lack of owner accountability. In discussions with various water management bodies… all concur that specific training in water management and the environment is essential for engineers in municipalities,” the report adds.

On the question of solutions, the report states that it would require the involvement of the relevant representative bodies to develop supplementary course material to align tertiary institutions’ curricula with the GCC curriculum.

The proposed training solution model consists of:

• As a goal, 200 mechanical and electrical engineers in training to qualify for GCC status within 38 months from the start of the project. This includes two months setup time before the start of a 36-month training period;

• A requirement to procure licence to the GCC curriculum, modify and capture on a virtual learning environment platform, and the identifying and inclusion of additional supplementary course content;

• A need for the setup of a training management structure and contractual agreements;

• The recruitment of engineers in training and mentors; and

• Identification of participating cluster municipalities with ANEU and available line mentor support.