Recently, I had a conversation with Johan Maartens, Executive Director of the Society for Automation, Instrumentation, Mechatronics and Computer Engineering SAIMC , about this critically important subject: why South Africa needs a National Graduate Rotation Programme.
Are tertiary institutions turning out a market-ready workforce? It is a sensitive point of discussion in industry. Johan Maartens believes that South Africas industrial economy is at a crossroads.
Automation, digitalisation, robotics, and AI are accelerating globally, yet our countrys engineering talent pipeline is struggling to keep pace. The gap between what graduates learn at university and what they encounter in modern industrial plants has widened to the point where it now threatens productivity, safety, and competitiveness, he says.
