The boundary between university and business needs to become more porous as new graduates grapple with the increasingly complex demands of a changing workplace.

This is the result of a baseline study on South African graduates from the perspective of employers carried out by the South African Qualifications Authority, in partnership with Higher Education South Africa.

The Resolution Circle is a University of Johannesburg-owned research and develop-ment ecosystem for technology that bridges the gap between student and industry and significantly impacts on the employability of graduates.

Resolution Circle CEO P

rofessor William Clarke says the centre has been quite successful in bringing together various disciplines and preparing graduates for business challenges.

The centre was established in May last year to function as an independent commercial business and commercial interface between industry and universities, offering the neces-sary facilities and employed professionals from industry to help incubate technology and engineering start-ups.

It also offers post-graduate students from a variety of disciplines the opportunity to acquire the sought-after skills and training to be industry ready.

It provides work-integrated learning (WIL) by partnering with industry on projects using learner-employee teams under the super- vision of experienced professionals. WIL is conducted through several programmes in which learner employees participate. Such programmes include the skills development programme for practical training in the basic trades, such as carpentry, fitting, welding and sheet metal work, electrical, industrial automation and control, as well as health, safety and first aid.

Through the Experiential Programme, the learner employees work on industry projects in interdisciplinary teams under the guidance of experienced industry supervisors. Team members are assigned different roles and rotate every month, with regular evaluation based on performance and technical ability as team members in the different roles.

The Workplace Readiness Programme provides learner employees with training on workplace issues such as soft skills, general behaviour and etiquette, basic office survival skills, entrepreneurship and an introduction to common company policies and procedures, as well as employment contracts.

The New Technology Practice Programme introduces learner employees to the new and exciting technologies they may encounter in industry, such as 3D printing and scanning, CNC machines and robotics.

As the interface between industry and university, Resolution Circle also ploughs back these innovations into the teaching and research of the university.

One of Resolution Circle’s latest projects, the Solar Car Project, was highly commended by the South African National Energy Asso-ciation. As part of the project, students design and build solar-powered vehicles to cross the South African countryside in a 5 000 km endurance race, promoting the development of sustainable engineering design, efficient energy use, environmental awareness and innovation.

The majority of the members of UJ’s Solar Car Project team are employed by Resolution Circle and they use Resolution Circle’s prototyping facilities. Building the UJ Solar Car has provided an opportunity for industry to collaborate with UJ on developing and showcasing green technology. The UJ Solar Project includes a network of 22 partners representing govern-ment, industry and small and medium-sized businesses.