19 July 2024
African youth is expected to constitute 42% of global youth by 2030, holding the key to the nation’s socio-economic development potential. Engineering careers are among the critical skills in high demand for the growth and development of our nation. South Africa, as a hub of engineering in Africa, features electrical, civil and mechanical engineering in the critical skills list; these careers double up on the 2024 National List of Occupations in High Demand.
Many industries reported a significant shortage of skilled workers, according to W&RSETA, by 2024, the gap between the skills available and the jobs requiring them could cost South Africa an estimated R1.6 trillion in unrealized economic potential. The need for improved coordination and alignment from key players of the South African education sector was overdue, in order to address the skills shortage contributing to the country’s suffering economy and reforming the curriculum.
QCTO occupational qualifications were adopted to provision improved quality education and training. These occupational programmes are reimagined to nurture the entrepreneurial spirit that benefits society and thrive on collaborations between businesses and higher institutions of learning. As an educational publisher, DLonra established and opened conversations with relevant education stakeholders, conversations that have spawned the establishment of our QCTO occupational qualifications pilot project underway.
With the landscape of skills development changing for Report 191 Part 1 (N1-N3) historical qualifications, the focus now firmly on occupational qualifications. The Report 191 Part 2 (N4-N6) engineering programmes curriculum remains, with the DHET releasing textbooks catalogue with curriculum updates. Our Industrial Electronics textbooks have recently been revised for the 2024 syllabus, Industrial Electronics N4 and N5 completely approved by the DHET. We await the highly anticipated release of the last IEL series, the Industrial Electronics N6 textbook coming out in September, stay tuned for the book release news updates!
With electrical engineering featuring in almost every top 5 highest paying engineering jobs in SA article available on the web – we conducted a recent study with some of SA’s TVET colleges offering engineering courses, that shows the electrical engineering branch to have the highest number of enrolled students. The ultimate question then is, does your college use quality learning material that meets the latest curriculum and skills programme structure?
The top 5 engineering careers in South Africa offering excellent job prospects and high salaries are electrical, civil, mechanical, chemical and software engineering. Engineering Bursaries South Africa 2025 provides bursaries to study in these top fields, from the best engineering companies in SA, more funding is available through merSETA as motivation and to address national and sector needs for skills development and occupations in demand.
The evolution of engineering education forces us to figure out how we can always improve and best offer quality education at scale. Learn more about our latest engineering learning material developments and projects here.