New deal gives SA access to EU transport expertise

Transport maintenance management to benefit KEVIN MAYHEW MORE PROFESSIONAL transport maintenance management in South Africa is on the cards following an agreement signed last week. A Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) was signed with the leading European Union industry and employee body, Le Centre d’Excellence en Maintenance Industrielle (CEMI), and the Transport Education and Training Authority (Teta). This arises from an ongoing relationship that TETA has developed between itself and related organisations in Belgium. Initially the MoU enables stakeholders in KwaZulu-Natal, the Eastern Cape and Western Cape to establish the necessary training and technical facilities to introduce recognised maintenance management qualifications into the country. According to TETA’s education, training and quality assurance (ETQA) manager, Wayne Adams, the first phase of the project is to select a group from within the transport sector to go to the CEMI head office in Charleroi, Belgium, to be taught the basics of modern maintenance management. They will then return to mentor other local candidates. In terms of the MoU, the project will require co-operation and the provision of technical assistance, research, study and training by both parties to ensure its success and is to be funded via the partnership between CEMI and TETA. “The TETA will facilitate the unit standard and curriculum framework development to meet local needs and accreditation requirements in terms of its mandate to enhance training and skills development within the transport sector,” says Adams. Interestingly, 60% of CEMI training in the EU is devoted to unemployed people who are trained to certain maintenance levels. Subsidisation for these learners is provided by an organisation for unemployed people called Forem, which sits on the CEMI Board. In this sense its activities mirror those of the South African Sector Education and Training Authorities (Setas), of which the TETA is one. CEMI was established in 1994.