In an effort to create a strong pipeline of trained welders for the skills-strapped manufacturing industry in South Africa, Alstom Ubunye has unveiled its latest educational initiative, a new welding school at Esibonelwesihle Secondary School, located in the Duduza township, near Nigel.

The Esibonelwesihle Welding School, under the banner of the Alstom Foundation, will start equipping Grade 10 to 12 high school students with welding skills, with the first classes set to kick off this month.

“The industry lacks [welder] skills,” Alstom Southern Africa MD and Alstom Ubunye CEO Xavier Boisgontier told Engineering News Online, noting that this emerged as an opportunity for Alstom Ubunye to be “part of the solution” and develop and enhance the required skills of students to enable them to enter the job market.

Funded by the Alstom Foundation and supported by nongovernmental organisation Electriciens sans Frontiéres, Alstom Ubunye identified Esibonelwesihle Secondary School to introduce a welding curriculum as part of the technical scope of the senior school learners.

Up to 30 learners – at least five of which are female – have enrolled for the Mechanical Technology: Welding and Metalwork subject for 2018 in the practical school under the supervision of teacher Noluxolo Nomcebo Ndlovu.

Alstom Welding School trainer Solomon Thena explained that the programme would be introduced in a staggered approach, with the enrolment of Grade 10 learners this year, followed by the introduction of the programme into the Grade 11 and Grade 12 syllabus in 2019 and 2020 respectively.

This had followed the successful first welding tests and a “dry run” at Esibonelwesihle in December.

“This kind of project creates a platform for better employment opportunities for learners and the upliftment of the Duduza community by equipping the students with extensive, high-quality training enabling them to readily enter the manufacturing employment pool,” Boisgontier said.

The project also feeds into Alstom Ubunye’s own in-house accredited welding school at its 80 000 m² facility, in Nigel, which absorbs ten welding learners each year.

The candidates graduating from Esibonelwesihle Welding School will have the opportunity to apply for a position in the accredited programme to further their skills or take what they have already learnt to market.

The Alstom Foundation, which is the philanthropic arm of Alstom created in 2007, has supported 168 projects in 52 countries spread across six continents, with tens of thousands of direct beneficiaries, at a cost of around R16-million a year.