At a ceremony attended by French President Nicolas Sarkozy and South African President Thabo Mbeki, the CEOs of French nuclear firm, Areva, and Nuclear Energy Corporation of South Africa (Necsa) signed an agreement that would see Areva’s support for engineering and nuclear skills development extended and increased.
“Arecsa Human Capital, a joint venture between Areva and Necsa, will increase training in technology and energy of disadvantaged South Africans, underlining the company’s commitment to government’s Accelerated and Shared Growth Initiative of South Africa and the Joint Initiative for Priority Skills Acquisition (Jipsa),” the French firm said in a statement on Friday.
Future cooperation between the two parties would also extend to the training of artisans through the Necsa Artisan Training Centre and a technical training centre, which reopened this year to address the needs for artisans in the broader nuclear industry.
These agreements support Areva’s initiatives aimed at bridging the gap in nuclear skills - which is a necessary step in building and maintaining South Africa’s nuclear programme.
“Skills are critical if South Africa’s nuclear industry is to succeed. Today, we have extended our support to Jipsa, and made another strong commitment to this vital area of the South African government’s economic policy,” Areva CEO Anne Lauvergeon said.
The skills development initiatives include the project leaders programme that has already trained skilled South African engineers at the Sorbonne and Areva University, and will be extended for a further five years, with more engineers benefiting from the training.
Also, in partnership with the North West University (NWU), Areva would start nuclear project management training at the university this year. The training would target local nuclear industry executives and NWU postgraduate students registered for nuclear engineering.
Source: http://www.engineeringnews.co.za/article.php?a_id=128211
If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to the RSS feed!
1 response so far ↓
1 admin // Mar 3, 2008 at 10:24 am
Over 3500 South African Citizens, Organisations, Communities and NGO’s have registered in a very time consuming and lengthy Environmental Impact Assessment process on government’s Nuclear Agenda in South Africa. What is supposed to be a “public participation” process which will only at the end decide whether South African’s agree to such a nuclear program using “taxpayers” money has been proven time and time again in recent months to be nothing more than a farce. The government has made up their minds long before any EIA process even started and hence their EIA process is nothing more than a farce and complete waste of time and money by private citizens to partake in such a farce process. And this is what this government likes to call DEMOCRACY? The South African government needs to be held accountable for wasting taxpayers time in their EIA processes for which the decisions have already been made.
You must log in to post a comment.