Training and Development

BENEFICIARIES OF TRAINING

In South Africa, adult basic education and training (ABET) is a cornerstone of empowerment. Supporting its formal ABET policy to give all employees the opportunity to become functionally literate, Exxaro has accredited ABET training centres at Grootegeluk and Tshikondeni in Limpopo, and Matla and Arnot in Mpumalanga. Annual training reports and workplace skills plans submitted and approved by the MQA contain details on candidates completing various ABET levels and short- and medium-term targets.

All potential candidates are assessed, counselled and encouraged to enroll for ABET. An incentive scheme was introduced to reward candidates who successfully completed an ABET level.

• More than 1 000 employees have passed one or more ABET levels since its inception.
• In 2007, 128 employees completed various ABET levels successfully (13 passed level 4, 17 level 3, 43 level 2, 38 level 1 and 17 pre-ABET). Another 128 non-employees or members of the community passed various ABET levels successfully.
• Grootegeluk achieved the national target of 70% of employees with qualifications of NQF level 1 or higher.

• Exxaro People Development Initiative: the Exxaro Foundation sponsors 24 previously disadvantaged students each year for a 12-month bridging course at the University of Pretoria. Candidates must be grade 12 students from Exxaro mining communities who want to study for a mining-related degree or diploma. On completion of these studies, candidates may be considered for an Exxaro bursary.
• Bursary programme: Exxaro grants some 30 bursaries each year to school leavers with a keen interest in mining-related disciplines such as engineering, geology and mine surveying. Graduates are generally offered employment at Exxaro, depending on the current need in that field, mostly through the group’s formal three-year professionals-in-training programme. There are currently 79 bursars studying at South African institutions at a cost of R5 million: two-thirds are historically disadvantaged South Africans and 16% are women.
• Professionals-in-training programme: the three-year programme bridges the gap between academic theory and the work environment. Each professionalin- training has a mentor who supervises exposure to the various commodities, leadership and management training, and formal training from professional bodies. In 2007, there were 48 professionals in training throughout Exxaro in a R17-million programme: 77% are from designated groups and almost half of those are women.
  
  

Exxaro has 500 learners in various learnerships and skills development programmes. Of these, over 400 are in engineering learnerships, 28 in mining learnerships and 53 in plant skills development programmes. Exxaro alone accounts for 30% of all engineering learnerships registered with MQA.

Over 77% of Exxaro’s qualify with full artisan status in trades such as electrician, fitter and turner, plater/ welder/boilermaker, diesel mechanic and millwright. Artisans are considered scarce and critical skills in South Africa and all these trades appear on the JIPSA (Joint Initiative for Priority Skills Acquisition) scarce skills list.

As part of its social and labour plans, Exxaro has included a five-year engineering learnership plan for 2007 to 2011. This R66-million plan leading to full artisan status provides for training 1 415 engineering learners in various trades over the next five years: 74% of these learners will be HDSAs while 81% will be male and 19% female.

To retain technical and engineering skills, a retention strategy has been introduced for technical categories, in addition to our aggressive succession planning strategy. Scarce and critical skills are captured in workplace skills plans submitted to and approved by MQA. In addition, as part of monitoring our artisan-retention strategy, the ratio of learnerships in the pipeline to the number of artisans employed in the various trades is reported monthly to the executive committee.