A new engineering artisan training facility which will deliver as many as 500 artisans into the South African economy every year is being launched by Production Management Institute (PMI) in Johannesburg today.
The training centre, located in Jet Park, is home to the full infrastructure required to produce qualified electricians, boilermakers and welders - three trades identified as being in particularly serious short supply.
Managing Director of PMI, Tim Smeeton, says: “This is a direct intervention to produce more engineering artisans. We are opening our new Jet Park campus today and next week we will have our first intake of learners.”
The Jet Park campus is housed in PMI’s Technical Training Services division, which also runs several other engineering and mining training sites in the Gauteng, North West, Northern Cape and Free State provinces.
Apprenticeships and learnerships for electricians, boilermakers and welders, as well as specialist short courses in these trades to fit specific employer needs, are being offered at the new facility.
Says Smeeton: “The initial capacity of the Jet Park campus allows for 250 certified engineering artisans to graduate annually though our intention in the short-term is to escalate capacity and double candidate output.
“Location of the training centre in the Johannesburg City Region as well as its focus on engineering skills also represents a response to the needs of industry in Gauteng.”
PMI Technical Training Services is borne out of the acquisition last year of Goldfields External Training Services (GFETS) by PMI parent company, Adcorp Holdings. Adcorp placed the acquisition with PMI as its specialist training and skills development company.
This year, PMI expects to produce up to 1 500 certified artisans across all its operations.
Smeeton says it is hoped that this initiative on the part of business will kick-start more collaboration between private and public sector players in training artisans.
“PMI has long-been the proponent of a coordinated approach by government and business to address skills shortages in South Africa as the problem is far bigger than any one player can handle.”
PMI trains and up-skills people in the workplace in several key economic sectors and produces graduates with accredited apprenticeships, learnerships, certificates, diplomas and degrees, including postgraduate qualifications.
At PMI’s Welkom campus run by its Technical Training Services division in the Free State employees from six mining houses are trained as artisans or up-skilled on an ongoing basis.
South Africa’s shortage of skills, especially artisans, is largely responsible for the country’s ongoing failure to achieve its targeted growth rate.
It is estimated that South Africa currently produces just 5 600 artisans a year while government has set the target of 50 000 new artisans by 2014.
- A boilermaker makes steel fabrications from plates and ‘sections’ and works on projects as diverse as bridges to blast furnaces and the construction of mining equipment. Electricians install and maintain electrical equipment. Welders work in a range of different industries and using a blowtorch or electrical current they bond pieces of metal together to create the widest range of different industrial products.
- A learnership is a contract between a learner, employer and an accredited training provider. It combines practical training in the workplace with appropriate theoretical learning and results in a formal qualification or credits towards a qualification. An apprenticeship is a program for learners who wish to engage in a formal learning program to attain artisan status. Learnerships include the traditional apprenticeships of the past but can also extend beyond blue-collar trades to prepare people for jobs in higher-level positions.
- The Production Management Institute (PMI) of Southern Africa is registered as a private Higher Education Institution by the Department of Higher Education and Training in South Africa.
- PMI’s areas of expertise traverse the entire range of education, training and development requirements from the initial assessment of learners through to bridging programmes, apprenticeships and learnerships (RPL and full). Its skills programmes offered to public and private employers cover qualifications at NQF level 1 through to level 7.
- PMI trains employees working in a range of industry sectors including automotive; manufacturing; logistics, warehousing and distribution; food and beverage; engineering; business process outsourcing; finance and printing and packaging.
For more information:
Alex van Essche
Meropa Communications
(011) 506- 7300
(082) 321- 1167
alexve@meropa.co.za