In 2016, SAICE-PDP was appointed to develop a quality assurance framework for the Young Professionals programme being rolled out by National Treasury under the Infrastructure Skills Development Grant (ISDG).
After initiating a substantial graduate training programme in local government, taking on engineering, planning, GIS and science graduates, National Treasury required a quality assurance framework to ensure that each profession was being developed in accordance with the requirements of the respective statutory councils.
It was necessary to develop guidelines on what should be included in training plans and how to assess progress. Furthermore, it was necessary to issue statutory council reporting formats to all mentors and to decide on review and reporting frequencies to ensure that candidates were making consistent progress.
Mentors, in-house supervisors, and all candidates were trained on their registration requirements with much emphasis being placed on the range and complexity of work to be covered and the need to develop a problem-solving approach to every task assigned.