(HERALD) Give engineers proper training, recognition

Give engineers proper training, recognition

EDITOR — Allow me to express my sadness at the apparent demise of my beloved profession, engineering. All over Africa, Zimbabwean engineers are in demand mainly because we are hardworking and well-trained professionals. The ground that we have covered to attain this status is, however, gradually being eroded. At the risk of sounding like a mercenary, let me say the rates engineers are paid in the public and private sectors are just pitiable. This development has seen many engineers leaving for greener pastures and unfortunately the gap they leave takes years to fill.

This applies to all levels — from artisans right up to the chartered engineers. The training standards have gone down as the skilled and seasoned engineers have left and are still leaving. This is where I want to challenge industry as to what they are doing to retain such skills.

I was shocked by one director at a local manufacturing concern who declined to give tooling allowances to his artisans simply because they can go and work somewhere else. This irresponsible attitude has seen apprentices coming off their training programmes virtually "green" and it’s a shame when such companies claim, by donating a few goodies, that they are responsible corporate citizens.

A few companies like Triangle, Zimplats, Delta and Zimasco still have very good focus on training which I urge other companies to follow. Training is the only basis for us to have the capacity to take back our industry to where it was. One needs to look at South Africa where such well-defined training systems were absent and the skills deficit they have despite a sound economy.

My other concern is the role of the Zimbabwe Institite of Engineers. Besides the "bridges competition" I am not sure whether enough has been done to make students aware of what engineering is and its importance. My other point is that ZIE is not a regulatory body — who regulates engineering practice?

Perhaps one would say that what NSSA — Factories Inspectorate does but engineers cannot be registered or accorded professional status by NSSA. To come out of this, I suggest that an engineeering council must be set up to oversee engineering standards in all aspects (training, mentoring and licensing). This council will obviously be made up of key stakeholders including the existing ZIE, factories inspectorate, ministries and so on.

As it is now, anyone can be promoted to the status of engineer in some of these organisations. Such promotions are made unfortunately by people who have no clue of what engineering is. This seriously compromises the learning environment especially for young graduates who find themselves being trained by people who are not adequately equipped for the tasks.

This, I hope, can be cleared if all engineers are registered and licensed by a regulatory body that will also oversee all other engineering activities. Qualification to Professional Engineer status should also be accompanied by certificates of competence covering all issues. Training of apprentices artisans should be done by certified artisans , training of engineers should aslo be done by Corporate/Professional Engineers.

Thirdly universities should increase the practical exposure of all would be engineers. NUST has gone some way in having an attachment programme that tries to address this but still needs fine tuning. It’s shocking to have a graduate mechanical or electrical engineer who can barely operate a basic lathe machine.

Shocking but its true — I have seen theoretically sound graduate trainees battling to get to grips with basic workshop technology— but then that is the beginning of it all. Perhaps it need to be taken further down to primary school to teach the youngsters basics of workshop practice rather than wait for them to graduate.The colleges just need to seriously improve on this.

For NUST I think whats needed is a firm progress follow up programme and agreement with the industry on the training needs of the students.

I have seen students being turned into "typists" with little or no emphasis on hands on trade practice during the whole year of attachment.

To all fellow engineers, the challenge is upon us to make this profession noble once more in our country. Can we also have a lively calendar ZIE? I don’t know when I last received a bulletin or newsletter despite being paid up.

Concerned Engineer.
Harare.