The Transnet Academy has concluded a five-year partnership agreement with the Universities of Pretoria and Cape Town, giving hope of training future railway engineers a chance.
Tumi Matsheka, Transnet Group Chief of People Management and Learning, said “by addressing skills deficiencies, enhancing employee productivity and fostering a culture of continuous learning, Transnet is taking decisive steps to build a more capable and engaged workforce, thus providing the necessary support to the Transnet Recovery Plan.”
The Transnet Academy will offer accredited training programmes in Railway Engineering, Operations, Projects, Occurrence Investigation, and Safety-related courses.
The move will assist Transnet with enhanced technical capacity, reliable safety standards and superior customer service delivery.
This will enable Transnet’s Engineers and Technicians to attain and maintain their professional registration with the Engineering Council of South Africa (ECSA) and it will also improve safety performance as well as the essential rail network infrastructure maintenance skills.
As part of the agreement, the University of Pretoria has thus far conducted seven independent investigations on level 1 and 2 incidents to determine trends and recommend solutions to augment the current controls for Transnet Freight Rail.
The relationship with the University has seen 3 307 Transnet employees graduating from the rail Occurrence Investigation Programme (ROIP) since the inception of the programme in 2013.