The main theme of the BHP-billiton Skills Development Summit was skills development and the issues of South Africa’s ever challenging skills gap.
Dr Yves Guenon, MD of Areva South Africa, spoke about skills development within the renewable energy sector. The power sector is the new age of electrification and has been rated one of the top industries to drive job creation.
He states that education should mainly be the responsibility of states. It is a tool allowing people to use knowledge and is also mandatory to develop a nuclear and renewable program within the country. It is better to have a system that allowed people to think instead of repeating what they have learnt.

Knowledge covers a very large variety of concepts. Knowledge is not simply a pile of documents but rather something to be used by someone’s brain. From processing instructions, understanding those instructions and eventually opening the door for improvement and progress. It is agreed that in order to develop knowledge, you require time and money, which can become taxing. For this reason, knowledge can be developed on public or private funding or in most cases by an interaction process.

Areva understands the importance of partnerships with local stakeholders. This is one of the key areas that assisted them in providing 1500 trainees in 2009. It is vital that certain testing operation procedures are adhered to. Training for and with these procedures should be in line with: The overall scheme of the plant, detailed presentation of the internal data and a deep physical understanding of all procedures.

Getting back to the fundamental issue of skills development and more importantly job creation, the nuclear sector creates more jobs than any other technologies during construction and operation. Nuclear creates jobs during a long-term construction period and keeps on more long-term jobs during operation.

Job opportunities found within the South African market can be linked to:

• Direct design and construction of the plant
• Direct manufacturing based on purchases by the plant contractors (first tier)
• Indirect purchases to second tier suppliers
• Operations & maintenance at the power plants
• Outages / Turn-around at the power plants
• Regular expenditures to local manufacturers and services organizations
• Industrial partnership new facilities
• On-going training center for operations (open for international training)

As with the establishment of any trade, you find various induced jobs created in the nearby communities to support the in-flux of new residents - doctors, teachers, and local municipality workers, workers in other local new businesses. An increase in employment due to more local capacity, results in less imports. An increase in 3rd, 4th, etc tier suppliers.

The welding trade is key to the construction of nuclear fleets as well as other projects including the oil and chemical industries. This trade provides jobs created in addition to the welder himself. These induced expenditures directly translate into additional manufacturing jobs in South Africa.

Skills development must address three main categories which apply to the entire program requirements for both nuclear specific skills and more conventional skills
• Project management
• Engineering and design
• Artisan trades

AREVA supports nuclear programs at the University of Northwest.
An engineering, procurement, construction management company will be formed to manage the AREVA scope in RSA.
Training of engineers and designers will be the early need, with training of artisans and supervision for construction activities to follow. Our SA partners currently have training programs, which will be used to address the specific needs for the nuclear program

S.A has done it before:
For Sasol 2 & 3 (from 1978 to 1983), approximately 7000 welders and 5500 pipe fitters were trained at the Secunda training center. These are among the most difficult trades to learn. The need for the new build nuclear program will surpass this accomplishment.

Tell me and I forget - show me and I remember - Involve me and I learn