Programme Director
Dr Aprille Ericson, our visitor from the United States (US) Nasa Space Flight Centre
Distinguished ladies and gentleman
Good morning
The issue of skills or lack of in this country has become one of the defining challenges of the democratic South Africa. We have a mammoth task of changing the face of poverty that most of our people are confined to.
To do this, we need to create conditions that encourage a higher growth rate than what we are achieving at the moment. In turn, to achieve this growth, we need a skilled workforce in all sectors of our economy.
We are particularly short of scarce skills and we continue to bleed as more and more engineers and other professionals leave our shores for proverbial greener pastures.
Clearly we are then caught in this vicious cycle lack of skills affect growth and lower growth rate further condemns millions into poverty. That we are reaping the rewards for the inequalities of the past is a moot point. It is how we respond to this challenge now and into the future that will define whether we succeed or fail.
It is for this reason that I find myself addressing this gathering which talks to these challenges that we face as a nation.
A recent Grant Thornton’s International Business Report has painted a rather dire picture regarding skills shortage in this country. It says that forty-one percent of South Africa's privately held business cites the availability of a skilled workforce as the biggest constraint to business growth. It is cold comfort ladies and gentlemen that in a previous research, the figure was higher with 48 percent bemoaning the lack of skills.
Again, it may be a source of cold comfort to know that we are not alone in this. The same report found that businesses in Botswana (54 percent) and Australia (47 percent) also identify skills this as their greatest business constraint.
Writing in the weekend’s edition of the Sunday Times, the eminent Dr Mamphela Ramphele who also chairs Gold Fields also laments the skills shortage with a particular reference to the mining industry. But she also issues a challenge to business when she says: The industry can contribute significantly in human capital development and community development, and business has picked up the call by government to upskill workers to compensate for years of underinvestment in training.
I am not here only to paint a dark picture. It is important to note other positive factors as well. A recruitment agency has found that over the past 11 years the number of students registering for engineering degrees and diplomas in South Africa has increased substantially, with 388 606 enrolments between 1998 and 2008[1]. This is good news.
But unfortunately, the ratio between enrolments and the actual pass rate is too disparate. Only 53 342 or just under 14 percent passed. The international norm is 25 percent and already that is pointing to an acute deficit. It gets worse.
The same study also found that were only 15 percent of mining engineers that graduate in South Africa stay in the mining industry in the longer term, versus 75 percent in the United States and over 80 percent in Australia.
The Department of Mineral Resources has noted in the Strategy for the Sustainable Growth and Meaningful transformation of the SA mining industry that, “other sectors that have skills challenges tend to recruit from the mining sector and large numbers of mining engineers are now working in the construction and financial services industries. While the South African mining sector has increased its relative levels of investment in skills development, and is currently spending approximately three percent of its total payroll on skills development training, unfortunately skills gaps still remain. It is projected that South Africa faces a shortage of over 500 mining engineers by 2013 and these skill shortages are exacerbated by the transportability of these types of skills into other sectors of the economy or in terms of international recruitment of these skills to go and work in other mining economies.”
Programme Director
The reality that we face means that other interventions are needed to mitigate the situation that we find ourselves in. It is clear that it cannot be business as usual and one of those areas where we can make a difference is to encourage more and more women to join the engineering and other technical fields that many people have thought of as a male preserve.
After all, there are more women than me. If we can add a few percentages of the fairer sex into the equation, we would well be on the road to dealing with this problem. So how are we doing on this score.
A department of Labour research paper notes, “In 1945 there were no women in engineering in South Africa but by 1974 more and more women gradually became part of the engineering profession (Interview 2006a; Interview 2006f; Interview 2007c). In 1996 about 16.21 per cent of engineering professionals who participated in the South African Labour Market were women. In 2005 this figure decreased to only 10.51 per cent (Quantec 2007). The declining trend is not only alarming in the context of the critical shortage of engineering skills in South Africa, but also highlights the continued under-representation of women in engineering.
A 2009 press statement issued by the Engineering Council of South Africa noted that there is a “marked increase in the number of women registered in the engineering profession in recent times.”
Further, the statement pointed that a ‘steady increase has been recorded since 2006 when only 1 387 were registered”. At the time the statement was issued, there were 2085 women registered in the various categories.
Recruiters have also noted significant changes over the years, “particularly within the artisan field as well as among graduate engineers”.
Why has it been so difficult to attract women into these specialised fields?
One of the answers is that the environment has not been welcoming for women. Basic necessities for women were not provided for. Noted a recruiter, As recently as five years ago some companies would not accept female artisans because they simply were not equipped to take them on. It wasn’t really about skills, just facilities. They lacked things like women’s bathrooms.
So the industry needs to continue creating this enabling environment for women not only because it addresses the critical area of shortages, but also because women are good for the industry.
The EU Commission Report (2006) states that it is known that, “women engineers bring diversity to the mono-cultural engineering workforce and therefore extend the impact engineering has on society. Women usually show interest in the social aspects of technology and science and can make a significant contribution to social and environmental questions.
But the barriers of entry still exist. Professor Elsabe Kearsley who heads the Department of Civil Engineering at the University of Pretoria says, historically there were major barriers that females had to overcome to work in the engineering field including lack of role models, lower salaries, hostility, unfair labour practices. Very few females entered and even fewer stayed in engineering - resulting in the current low percentage of females in engineering.
The Department of Labour (DoL) paper I quoted earlier also alludes to these barriers citing conditions that do not always accommodate women workers.
Some of the most significant barriers identified are balancing work with family, gaining credibility and respectability amongst male peers, dual careers, lack of mentors due to small numbers of women engineers, access to networks, and inequality in terms of salaries and promotion opportunities.
The report further notes, "It is clear that it is not women’s insufficiencies that prevent them from entering the engineering field, but rather social and institutional structures and barriers. Some of the women engineers who were interviewed feel very strongly about the fact that women should know and accept the realities of the engineer’s workplace, accept that it is traditionally seen as a man’s world, adapt and “…just get over it” as one commented
Professor Kearsley is of the view that there are significant changes underway. She says:
- Since 1994 major changes have taken place and the true discrimination against females has largely been eradicated.
- Currently a significant percentage of young people entering the field are female (in the region of 20 percent) but it will take time for these females to gain experience and be promoted to senior positions in industry.
- It will take a generation before there are significant numbers of "older" females in engineering.
- It is the interest of young females to ensure that they get the best possible education, training and mentoring, to ensure that there are sufficient role models to encourage more girls to consider careers in engineering in future.
- Engineering is and will always be a hard, tough environment where bad decisions results in loss of life and therefore many young mothers leave the field or put their careers on hold as they battle to balance a stressful job with home responsibilities.
- Although engineering is often seen as a job for a man there are many aspects of engineering that do not require physical strength. The diversity that females bring to a team can improve working relationships.
- It is important for females in engineering to realise that they have to play as team members in a male dominated environment. One of the main challenges females face is to make a valuable contribution as team member without losing the feminine touch.
Programme Director! Women are not and should not be asking for the standards to be lowered just so that they can be accommodated. ECSA has stringent requirements for engineers in general. This is correct. It would be unfortunate to construe the requirement as a barrier for women to make a meaningful contribution in the economy. ECSA is adamant that, “competency requirements of engineering professionals is not negotiable as we are dealing with a matter of public safety.One then appreciates the fact that no concession on registration requirements can be made based on gender consideration.The standard for registration with ECSA is benchmarked against international norms and is equally applicable to applicants of either gender.The stringent registration requirements must not be incorrectly misconstrued to be as a gender barrier, it is a matter of quality and standards set in the interest of public health and safety.”
I am sure that a number of you gathered here will agree with the sentiment and women do not require anything less.
No effort to alleviate the engineering skills shortage in South Africa can ignore the potential contribution which women can make in this regard.
Consequently, ensuring that more women graduate and remain in the engineering profession is vital from both a social equity perspective as well as addressing the acute shortage of engineering skills so vitally needed for improving the facilities, infrastructure and living conditions of the disadvantaged communities.
An Australian study recently found that while women engineering students may be few in number they do tend to complete their engineering studies with great success.However there appears to be a problem to keep women in the profession once they graduate.This situation is consistent with the South African experience and this calls upon all of us to find ways of creating the enabling environment that not only attracts women but retains them to make the meaningful contribution that they can make.
I am sure that this women in engineering conference will explore some of these important issues which include:
- Ways in which more women can be attracted to the engineering profession
- Identifying the challenges women face during their studies and in the workplace once they graduate
- How we can build nurturing and inclusive workplace cultures?
- How can supervisors and mentors contribute to building positive experiences for women in the profession?
- How we can rid society of stereotypes of engineering being narrowly technical as opposed to involving both technical and social expertise?
Furthermore, I suggest that the topics of culture which debilitates the entry of women into the engineering profession and the important role which women engineers play, in serving as role models to motivating female students at schools and universities, needs to be discussed and appropriately addressed.
I wish you well in you discussions and wish to emphasise that you need to be the change which you would like to see effected in both society and the engineering profession.
I thank you
Source: Department of Mineral Resources
