By By IOPSA | Images by Eamonn Ryan

IOPSA serves as the lead employer in the Department of Higher Education’s Centres of Specialisation (CoS) initiative.

Its primary objective is to address the demand for priority trades that are required for the implementation of the government’s National Development Plan and the National Infrastructure Plan through direct contribution towards building the capacity of the public Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) college system. The intended outcome is to deliver trade qualifications with employers as critical role-players.

The average age of existing qualified artisans (not just plumbing) in South Africa is in excess of 55, and so will begin retiring soon unless replenished.

With plumbing having been identified as one of the 13 priority trades within CoS, IOPSA – as the lead employer – is charged with acting as the link between industry, participating colleges and host employers. It manages apprentices in this intricate collaboration as the project manager, with the colleges providing the theory, host employers the on-the-job experience, and DHET the public funding through the National Skills Fund’s SETA Discretionary Grant system. It falls to IOPSA to ensure that both employers and colleges offer a well-rounded skills solution for the development of a world-class artisan.

Participating as host employers are plumbing firms such as AJC Plumbers, Plum Plumb Plumbing, as well as various hospitals.

As part of the CoS, what is known as the ‘Dual System Pilot Project (DSPP) is being managed by IOPSA, a three-year apprenticeship in collaboration with the German Cooperation. The Dual System in fact predates the CoS, and the pilot is to ensure the two dovetail. An apprenticeship differs quite markedly from a learnership: in the latter trainees simply acquire some work skills (but not to the depth and level of an apprenticeship who gets trained in trade in order to become an artisan), while in an apprenticeship they acquire specific skills on the way to becoming a professional plumber. The former is a more serious skills development process and retaining those skills within the industry and by specific employers is consequently more important.

Through this unique arrangement, employers offer experiential learning to apprentices while TVETs impart the knowledge component, including simulations with IOPSA as the centre that ensures that all the parties contract seamlessly in a project that will culminate in the all-important trade test. The first intake started in January 2018, with 25 trainees in each of Gauteng and Eastern Cape who are now in their second year. A second, larger intake of 75 has already commenced in Gauteng, KwaZulu-Natal and Eastern Cape (25 each). The first intake (what is left of them) will become qualified artisans in 2020.

There has however been a significant fall-out rate. Selection is done via colleges’ waiting lists as well as IOPSA’s canvassing of its membership. In the latter case, it is often offered to existing employees wishing to become qualified plumbers. Because it is a pilot process, the recruitment process has since been improved than it was for the first, where it was found that some learners were already on another programme and simply wanted the stipend (R3 400), rather than a desire to learn plumbing. Others received offers of full-time employment while on the programme, resulting in the initial intake of 50 being at the moment down to 39. Normal labour laws apply, though the contract of employment does contain penalties.

The objective is for the programme to ultimately spread throughout the country, with a plan to scale up from 25 and include some other provinces as well.

The youth are enrolled for the three years and alternate between blocks of time at the TVET and at the workplace throughout the three years, switching workplaces as needed to ensure they get relevant experience. The programme is fully funded by the NSF which passes the funding to IOPSA which in turn pays each trainee a monthly stipend. Provided with this funding, IOPSA ensures each gets a toolbox, PPE, and medical fitness tests as required.

While the objective of parties to the project might be to rapidly scale up the enrolment, it is almost entirely dependent on the willingness of host employers to firstly provide training, and secondly employ apprentices full-time at the conclusion. The employer is not under an obligation to employ upon the learner completing the training, though it is hoped that this would be the result with the employer having learned of the value of the apprentice over the years. However, the apprentice also has a responsibility to impress the employer.

IOPSA has encouraged members to accept the apprentices, as it is an invaluable tool to upskilling the industry and provides them an opportunity to take on plumbers that they have themselves monitored the development of.


Apprentices warm to plumbing

 By Eamonn Ryan

AJC Plumbers has four apprentices – Innocent Mnisi (26); Sandisiwe Mbolekua (25); Sheron Mashele (24); and Keelibone Mahlake (30) – working for the firm, with owner Arthur Classen describing the project as “a great success”.

Mnisi says she heard about the project through a friend and applied via the college, Ekurhuleni East College, where she had been studying civil engineering. The latter, however, was an industry in which she could find no work and get no experience. “Initially I knew nothing about plumbing, but now that the opportunity has arisen and the more I do it I have fallen in love with plumbing.”

Mbolekua describes the programme as being split between college and work blocks, with the first college block having been four months. “The college block is also divided between theory and practical training – we learn something and then do it in a workshop, and now do it in the workplace. Here at AJC, we do actual work on site alongside a qualified plumber.” She also studied civil engineering at college but could find no programme to give her practical experience like the current apprenticeship project.

“Initially I knew nothing about plumbing, but now that the opportunity has arisen and the more I do it I have fallen in love with plumbing.”

“When this opportunity arose, I thought it was not far off from what I was already studying, so I grabbed the chance. I love working with my hands, and this is also construction-type work.

Mashele says: “We started in January for four months, and the rest of the time we have been here at AJC. Initially, we were placed with other employers where we could not do actual plumbing, and IOPSA changed that to bring us to AJC from 1 July.”

Now, says Mahlake, they are doing “piping for the water supply to bathtubs and toilets, shower traps and sewer lines.”

Their experience of plumbing is still in its early stages, and all four still have the dream to qualify as plumbers, but to build on that and find a career which is not quite so repetitive, they each say.