Page 20 - trends in automation

South Africa: Practice-oriented training in the water sector
Knowledge provides clarity
Water is the elixir of life and a precious commodity in South Africa. To meet future
requirements for nationwide water supply and wastewater disposal, South Africa
needs more trained personnel. Festo Didactic is helping by providing practical basic
and further education in plant and system operation in a development project.
T he issue of water supply is high on the agenda of the
South African government. The need for improvements
in water supply and quality was referred to by President
Jacob Zuma on 7 April 2012 in his state of the nation
address – and with good reason. According to information from
the Department of Water Affairs in South Africa, the country
needs more than 8,000 qualified workers to make up for
shortcomings in the operation and maintenance of South
African water supply and wastewater disposal plants. The
challenge is to achieve efficient operation and sustainable
maintenance of these plants. To meet this challenge, Festo
Didactic has developed specially adapted EduKit PA learning
systems for South Africa in cooperation with the German
Agency for International Cooperation (Deutsche Gesellschaft für
Internationale Zusammenarbeit, GIZ). The project is supported by
the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and
Development.
Practical training
The project objective is to improve the quantity and quality of
water provision through practice-oriented basic and further
training for the water sector. Yvonne Salazar, Global Training
Business Development at Festo Didactic, explains: “Efficient
basic and further employee training in maintenance, monitoring
and control improves energy efficiency and reduces the operating
costs of plants. These are crucial factors for development based
on the ‘green city’ model.”
Learning through simulated processes
With the support of the Festo national company in Johannesburg,
the University of Pretoria (UP) and The Water Academy (TWA)
in Knysna, training modules for engineers, technicians and
semi-skilled workers are being offered on the expanded EduKit
PA learning systems. The simulation of real processes on the
learning systems is a simple and effective way of ensuring that
newly acquired knowledge is put into practice. Whereas only
‘test-tube experiments’ were possible before, now real
influencing factors and their interaction can be mapped and
corres­ponding process knowledge can be communicated. The
aim is to have a minimum of 450 employees qualified to work in
the water sector by the end of the project.
Workshop for roll-out
From 8 to 12 October 2012, the lecturers from UP and TWA as
well as colleagues from Festo were briefed on the use of the
learning systems and training modules in a workshop hosted