South Africa’s Department of Water and Sanitation (DWS) has described itself as being “swamped” by requests from young qualified engineers wanting to workin the water sector.

According to the DWS’s Learning Academy (LA) director, Verena Meyer, one of the main areas in DWS which experiences a dire shortage of skills and expertise is engineering.

“The LA has made considerable strides in attracting young engineers to the department.

To date, 57 young engineers have been offered an opportunity to participate in our Professional Development programme. Three of these engineers have managed to register as Professional Engineers, while others are on various levels of meeting the required eleven outcomes of the Engineering Council of South Africa (ECSA),” says Meyer.

To boost the programme, 20 recently qualified engineers joined the LA in January this year. They are completing the Department of Public Service and Administration’s (DPSA’s) compulsory induction programme, breaking barriers at the DWS’ Roodeplaat Training Centre, and will report for duty at their various base stations with effect from 2 February this year.