The Paper Manufacturers Association of South Africa (Pamsa) is tackling the skills shortage in the paper industry through the implementation of its newly developed national research framework.

Pamsa started developing a national research framework for the pulp and paper industry in 2008, representing, besides others, paper and packaging group Mondi, packaging product manufacturer Nampak, health and hygiene product marketer and manufacturer Kimberly-Clark and paper and pulp producer Sappi, which all provided financial backing and project guidance for the initiative.

The research framework came about after an evaluation of the industry’s research and development capabilities revealed a crucial shortage of chemical engineers with a strong research background, and that no overall coordination linked the various research facilities with the capability of conducting pulp and paper research.

The framework has been developed with input from Pamsa’s technical steering committee and a research unit has been established, which will be coordinated by research unit director Casper Nice, an experienced engineer. The framework focuses on all the foundation research in the pulp and paper industry on four main project themes, namely fibre processing, biorefining, recycling and fibre engineering, reports the association.

The themes were chosen based on the present needs of the industry and the existing skills and resources of the three universities historically linked to the pulp and paper industry, which include the universities of Pretoria, Stellenbosch and KwaZulu-Natal, explains Nice. 
The research will focus on enhancing the use of South Africa’s raw material in the industry.

The association explains that the three universities, as well as the Centre for Scientific and Industrial Research, were invited to submit coordinated research proposals that fit the Pamsa research framework’s four themes. 
These proposals were presented to Pamsa’s member companies, each of which picked projects most closely aligned to its own company aims.

An industry/student mentoring system fast-tracks the placement of suitable and enthusiastic chemical engineering graduates with the member companies, which then provide bursaries for students whose MSc projects were chosen, reports the association. 
Each research project will be addi-tionally funded by Pamsa and the National Research Foundation’s Technology and Human Resources for Industry Programme.

Any foundation research that is formalised during the two-year span of each project will only be shared among Pamsa members. Upon completion of the students’ projects at the end of the two-year period, the graduates will work for their mentor mills as experts in their fields of study. 
The companies will choose projects for nine students, every year from this year onwards, so that, ideally, there will always be 18 postgraduate students in the system from 2011 onwards.

The association reports that this initiative will provide the industry not only with increased capacity in the form of up to ten well-trained chemical engineers each year, but also with well-funded research facilities at each of the three universities, at which Pamsa companies may conduct their own research. 
Importantly, it formalises a coordinated research plan to keep South Africa’s pulp and paper industry globally competitive and attractive to future engineers.

Encouraging Tertiary Study

Pamsa executive director Jane Molony says that a complete “ladder of learning” exists in the paper and pulp industry, from the recognition of prior learning through to the full development of unit standards to ensure that learners become competent in different aspects of the business. 
She says that, should learners choose 
the academic route, there are links to see that they can go from a national diploma 
in pulp and paper to a degree, if they so wish.

Pamsa and the Forest Industries Sector Education and Training Authority (Fieta) offer several skills programmes, including national certificates and learnerships. 
“The challenge is getting full learner-ships completed when learners have problems with the fundamentals of maths, science and language,” she says.

She explains that, to combat this, there is a new initiative called the National Certificate Vocational programme, which has a curriculum that has been developed by training provider Sparrow Consulting for Pamsa, with partial funding from Fieta. Future funding may also be provided by the Chemical Industries Education and Training Authority.

The initiative involves working with local further education and training colleges and, so far, the Umfolozi College and the Ekurhuleni College have been identified to roll the course out in 2011. 
Learners can start in grade ten and effectively move on to obtain a technical matric, which comprises all the funda-mentals of maths, science, a language and process-plant subjects, so that they have the option of further tertiary academic study.

Meanwhile, an alternative tertiary option available to learners is a national diploma in pulp and paper, studied either full time through the Durban University of Technology or part time through the University of South Africa (Unisa).

“After much effort, the first learners graduated from Unisa this year with the National Diploma. 
“It is hoped that 35 learners will graduate in 2010 from the university. 
“Owing to ongoing lecture support sponsored by the industry, the pass rate 
is around 60%, which is three times that 
of most distance learners,” she concludes.

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