Engineering Resource Academy Equips Young Engineers with Skills to Sustain the Engineering Profession
Engineering Resource Academy Equips Young Engineers with Skills to Sustain the Engineering Profession, They seek to bridge the gap between the classroom training and the real- life challenges.
To prevent building collapse and quackery in the country, the Engineering Resource Academy is taking proactive steps by deliberately training young fresh graduates of engineering with the prerequisite skills as well as ensuring continuous professional development.
The Founder of Engineering Resource Academy, Engr (Dr) Omolola Adetona FNSE, FNICE, emphasised their aim of building safely, developing professional skills and continuity of the profession.
The founder was the Chairman of Nigerian Institution of Civil Engineers, Lagos Chapter and during this time she recommended their graduates and young engineers to their members and organisations to employ them as site engineers, Adetona frowned at the feedback.
“Our members and organisations told us our young engineers were messing up the work, asking if we didn’t train them before sending them to their organisations,” she narrated.
While admitting that the feedback was part of the challenge, they resolved to train the young fresh graduates of engineering and send them as interns to the field according to their area of interest in the professional world. Actually. No one likes employing these fresh graduates as we believe they know next to nothing.
The founder also acknowledged that working on the job is the experience the young engineers need to improve.
“Thus, we put together the Engineering Resource Academy and trained interns for two weeks to ensure the sustainability of our profession,” says Adetona.
According to the founder, their quest is also to avert possible building collapse by eradicating quackery from sites.
She noted: “We want to develop our young graduates of Engineering to be better at construction and keep developing the Built Environment.”
As the former National Vice Chairman of the Nigerian Institution of Civil Engineers, she outlined some of their students’ specialisations and their areas of consideration as follows;
This include design engineers, construction supervisors, electrical engineers, mechanical engineers, builders, quantity surveyors, architects, structural designers, construction materials QCQA Engineers, and knowledge about Engineering codes and regulations. This and many more are considered and included in the syllabus approved for the training. Soft skills are part of the included training as well as new trends of engineering for instance the use of the Drone technology, tunnelling etc
The Academy also teaches the engineers about how to put together professional curriculum vitae (CV) and a cover letter. “With that, we reach out to some organisations to employ them as interns and place them under a more senior engineer to train them for six months. We give them log books to record their daily activities to be monitored and signed off by the overseeing engineer.
“In line with standard procedure, the stakeholders of Engineering Resource Academy visit them regularly during their internship. The agreement is that once they have done very well and learnt on the job, they should be considered for permanent employment.”
Since their internships, Adetona is pleased that their trained young graduates of engineering got employed. “The companies don’t want them to leave after internship because they added value to their organisations,” she expressed.
With their new skills, the Engineering Resource Academy looks forward to partnerships with other organisations to keep employing and training these interns to improve and develop their young minds.
While adding that their interns have been encouraged to consider their areas of strength and what they plan to become in the next 5 years. Mentorship and guidance is one of the strong aspect of this training as Entrepreneurs are invited to mentor these interns during the training, Adetona hopes they imbibe the teachings.
She said, “We teach them to be better, change the narrative, and make Nigeria a bigger and better nation.”
Ultimately, Adetona and the entire academy are confident in their engineers. “We are proud of them, and we know that the sustainability of our profession can only get bet.
