What are the challenges that recent graduates face on their journey to competence and professional development. Please share your view in this forum on this matter as SAIMechE would like to engage in a discussion in order to get to a better understanding of the issues that graduates are dealing with.

Who will pay for the Mentors' time on the NRS as this requires a lot more inpout than the legacy system did?

At present Mentors operate mainly on a voluntary bases, giving of their time as and when they can. Some companies have included the Mentoring role in some employees key performance areas so these Mentors are remunerated through their company salary. The companies that do this are few and far between.
As the New Registration System (NRS) for Professional Registration with ECSA is much more demanding of Mentors who want to perform the role properly the question of payment will loom large in the future.

as a graduate myself the biggest challenge I face is that there are no mentors in the company as well as that there is no proper training plan that i can follow. That means then one is consistently having to balance ones output in terms of work as well as trying to locate areas of work that will be aligned to the outputs and competencies as required by ecsa

Hi B. Molefe and any other members who may have the same challenges.

Finding a mentor in such a situation can seem like a big obstacle but if you are a member of a local branch of SAIMechE have you tried attending branch functions on a regular basis, meeting other members and interacting. You may come across someone during your discussions who would be keen to be a mentor.

Through the PDP SAIMechE is working towards setting up accredited mentors who will be paid professionals using the PDP material and system. Candidates will work in groups of 6, participate in monthly workshops and be able to assist each other to find the necessary work exposure to cover all their requirements.