South Africa did not produce enough graduate engineers, which was worrying, as good engineering made a significant contribution to social welfare, Science and Technology Minister Naledi Pandor said on Monday.

Speaking at the official opening the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation Africa Engineering Week at the University of Johannesburg, the Minister noted that South Africa only had about 1 500 engineering graduates a year, of which, on average, only half went on to practice engineering.

Pandor stated that, according to a study by the South African Institute of Civil Engineering, South Africa had fewer engineers than doctors, which was generally the case in developing countries. However, in the developed world, this situation was reversed, showing the link between engineering and social welfare.

“If you have a lot of engineers, you create the conditions for fewer health problems. There is an important link between infrastructure and social health. For example, more and better housing means healthier communities, more roads [and] public transport infrastructure means the greater the ability of workers to travel to workplaces.

“Better access, better hospitals, more hospitals [and] more clinics mean a greater ability to access quality healthcare,” she explained, stating that all of these facilities and infrastructure were provided by engineers.

She added that, should South Africa continue to have inadequate infrastructure, its health challenges would increasingly become worse.

Therefore, Pandor believed South Africa had to quadruple its yearly number of engineering graduates.

“The shortage of engineering professionals means that we don’t have enough practitioners available for ongoing work. And that work that requires engineering decisions is being done without competent engineering input,” she said, stating that she believed that recent building collapses were related to the lack of engineers.

She added that, by not dealing with the engineering skills shortage, the country was also preventing itself from stopping the decline in the labour market.

“Because if we have more engineers, we would have more project managers that can oversee large construction projects,” she said, adding that South Africa also had to ensure that it had enough engineers in the mining and construction sectors to support growth in these key areas.

Further, the Minister noted that significant projects, such as the Square Kilometre Array, would not succeed without the adequate availability of local engineers.

Pandor also called on scholars to work hard at maths and science while still at school to enable them to pursue a career in engineering, stating that “the future character of South Africa relies on your love of maths and science”.