Capacity for South Africa's development

Services required to address poverty and quality of life are largely the domain of the Civil Engineer. The volume of civil engineering work is increasing and the growth is expected to continue over the next 10 years. However, the number of professionals in the field has steadily declined over the past 15 years. The age distribution of the profession as recorded in the SAICE database in August 2002 was as follows:

The alarming facts are:

• An inadequate number of matriculants are entering civil engineering tertiary faculties
• Of those entering, the standard of their maths, science and problem solving abilities is generally found to be inadequate and bridging programs are required
• Only a portion of Technikon trained graduates are able to get employment
• Those who are fortunate, are expected to be capable from the first day on the job, and older staff are not available to mentor/train them and help them develop their careers, so a substantial portion leave the industry frustrated/disillusioned
• If members of this group succeed in developing technical prowess, they are generally not able to handle the other professional demands made on them - such as attending and managing meetings, handling financial queries, writing business plans, negotiating, communicating etc
• Those who do gain suitable experience either move overseas after registration, or are enticed into lucrative related positions in commercial organisations where they can earn more...

This means that the delivery required over the next 10 years will fall on the shoulders of the aging group in the right of the above graph. Unless the trough is adequately filled, South African civil engineering will be on its knees in 10 years time.

The Allyson Lawless and Associates 'Go MAD' initiative seeks to assist the industry and particularly SAICE (the South African Institution of Civil Engineering) to research all the problems and programmes currently in place, and to facilitate setting up a comprehensive process for selection, training, mentorship, registration and retention of all who show an interest in civil engineering.

The following diagram shows the life cycle process. Over time initiatives and their details will be posted on this web site - watch this space....