As part of efforts to bring more skilled professionals into the public sector, specifically the built environment, the Department of Public Works and Infrastructure (DPWI) will on Tuesday award bursaries to pupils who displayed excellence in their matric year.
Public Works and Infrastructure Minister Patricia de Lille will hand over bursaries to 53 students who recently matriculated and have been accepted to study at various universities across the country for built environment degrees.
The department annually awards bursaries to pupils who display excellence and enrolled for courses in the built environment for their tertiary education.
The DPWI has a bursary programme linked to an overall Skills Pipeline Project whereby pupils are encouraged at school level to consider careers in the built environment.
Another key aim of the DPWI Bursary Programme is to remove financial barriers by providing funding for disadvantaged students to access built environment qualifications.
The programme is aimed at increasing the number of built environment professionals from previously disadvantage groups to represent the demographics of the country and ensure transformation of the built environment sector.
The programme further serves as feeder to the departmental Internship and Young Professionals Programme and later forms a pool of qualified built environment professionals to serve the state in the delivery of infrastructure projects.
The bursary accommodates the following study areas: Electrical Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Civil Engineering, Marine Engineering, Property Studies / Real Estate, Actuarial Science, Quantity Surveying, Construction Project Management, Landscape Architecture, Architecture and Town and Regional Planning. Bursary recipients are required to enrol for a B-Degree in any of these fields of study and at a traditional university in the country.
The bursary covers tuition, accommodation, meals, textbooks, project and compulsory study resources and a monthly allowance.
Over the past eight years, DPWI has awarded bursaries to 401 students since the programme started in 2014, an investment of R52 million into the lives of the students and to bring the required skills into the public sector.
Many of the students have achieved excellent results in the recent matric exams, many of them achieved distinctions in maths and physics.
The students have been accepted for courses such as Actuarial Science, Electrical Engineering, Construction Studies, Urban and Regional Planning, Civil Engineering, Quantity Surveying and Mechanical Engineering – to be studied at various accredited traditional universities.
Minister de Lille will hand over bursary award certificates to the students at a ceremony where previous bursary beneficiaries will give testimonials on how these bursaries have assisted them to enter and thrive in careers in the built environment.
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