Students in the field of Mechatronics are getting an enhanced training experience through an innovative apprenticeship programme offered at Volkswagen’s Uitenhage plant.
In November last year, Volkswagen Group South Africa teamed up with Port Elizabeth College, the merSETA and a Johannesburg-based development agency, the Swiss-South African Cooperation Initiative (SSACI), to pilot an apprenticeship programme based on the widely-admired Swiss and German ‘dual system’.
This system advocates that the apprentices alternate every two weeks between the college and the company, thereby acquiring and practising in quick succession the knowledge and skills of the mechatronics trade.
Initiated by Minister of Higher Education and Training Blade Nzimande, this pilot project aims to test the practicality, effectiveness, cost and appeal of the dual-system apprenticeship for local South African employers. The apprentices are drawn from college students in the first year of the three-year National Certificate (Vocational) in engineering studies. Apart from spending every second week in the VWSA plant, the apprentices also spend their college vacations at the workplace, to gain as much work exposure and practical experience as possible. They are scheduled to graduate from college in December 2015 and do practical trade tests soon after, thus becoming fully-qualified mechatronics technicians.
“The benefit of this dual-system apprenticeship is that the training is closely aligned to the current technology and systems in the industry. Also the closer integration of theory and practice also promotes faster and more thorough learning,” commented David Powels, Volkswagen Group South Africa managing director.
The dual-system pilot is being managed nationally by SSACI, a public-private partnership aimed at improving South Africa’s skills training system. Currently in South Africa, the dual-system apprenticeships are being implemented at two pilot sites, each focusing on a specific trade.
“The site at the Port Elizabeth College focusses on mechatronics and its first intake of 14 learners, are training in three local companies – VWSA, Continental Tyres and Johnson Controls,” explains Claudia Rudolph, the project manager of SSACI
“The other is situated in Saldanha Bay’s West Coast College, whose first intake of 26, are being trained in welding.”
The Dual-system apprentices and samples of other apprentices in the country are assessed in September each year through an internationally-standardised competency-assessment instrument developed by the University of Bremen in Germany (COMET) under the auspices of the merSETA. This will track the project participants’ progress against that of their non-project counterparts in this country, and to permit comparison of both groups with apprentices in Germany and other countries where the same instrument is being used.
“We are proud to be involved in this ground-breaking initiative that is helping to pioneer the future for artisan training. This project is also used as a pilot to identify the gap between training delivered by colleges and skills training required by industry. With all the challengers we experienced thus far, it is encouraging to know that an effect is made to incorporate FET colleges into industry. ” concluded Powels.
Mechatronics is a synergistic combination of precision engineering, electronic control and mechanic systems. It is the science that exists at the interface among the other five disciplines: mechanics, electronics, informatics, automation and robotics
Alan Straton
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