Civil Engineering January-February 2022 | Vol 30 No 1

Civil Engineering January/February 2022 15 truth is that infrastructure failure has become a reality in some areas. The South African Cities Network also reports a decline in technical ca- pacity in municipalities, including some cities, that affects their ability to spend capital budgets. “Over the past 20 years, South African municipalities have seen a significant loss of technical capacity in the form of engineers, technicians, and technologists, with skills that are vitally important in managing a capital programme. While the larger cities have relatively good technical capacity, the smaller cities face constraints in this area, which will have a negative impact on their ability to spend capital budgets” (SACN, 2020). Similar conclu- sions were drawn in SAICE’s Numbers and Needs in Local Government report (Lawless, 2017). EDUCATION In a country with a growing population and decreasing technical skills in munici- palities, education and capacity building are core. The education challenge is to guarantee that the basic engineering competencies are taught, while embracing the Fourth Industrial Revolution among a student population that reflects the equity gaps of the broader society. During the Covid-19 pandemic and all its educational challenges, many universities put systems in place to make sure that we ‘leave no student behind’. Online emergency teaching, with all its challenges, provided many solutions. In the area of Continuous Professional Development (CPD), SAICE has similarly stepped up through the launch of the SAICE Academy. The objective of the SAICE Academy is the growth and development of SAICE’s members in the promotion, for the public benefit, of the general advancement of the science and practice of civil engineering, and to foster transformation in the civil engineering sector through skills and professional development. Although SAICE has always provided training in the CPD space, this has usually been aimed at meeting the ECSA require- ments of obtaining at least one CPD point per annum. The question now is how to develop the next generation of experts and specialists in the various civil engineering fields. This is the niche targeted by the SAICE Academy. The new skills development paradigm is based on the philosophy that skills consist of knowledge, experience, and wisdom. The knowledge is necessary to know what to do. The experience is required to know how to perform the required tasks, while wisdom is attained through doing the work repeatedly, and assessing the different circumstances and how to do the same, or similar, tasks better. CONCLUSION When you combine the first digit of my headings, you will see that the word ‘CARE’ appears (see Figure 6). Those who correspond with me know that ‘dare to care’ has been my motto since the start of the pandemic. The late President Nelson Mandela asked all South Africans to dedicate 67 minutes of our time in service to others in need. I challenge all members to do this every month, donating their skills, experience, and wisdom in service of our people. Imagine what difference the collective 200 000 hours could make. So, in conclusion, let’s ‘CARE, REBOOT and REBUILD’ our beautiful nation.  REFERENCES Gasson B. 2002. The ecological footprint of Cape Town: Unsustainable resource use and planning implications, National Conference of the South African Planning Institute, Durban. 18 September 2002. Lawless A. 2017. Numbers and Needs in Local government – Where are we Now? Civil Engineering, Volume 25, No 1, pp. 15-26. National Planning Commission (NDC). 2011. Our future – Making it work, National Development Plan 2030, Executive Summary, South African Government Publication, Pretoria (SA). South African Cities Network (SACN). 2020. State of the City Finances, ISBN: 978-1- 920704-31-5, Johannesburg (SA). United Nations. 2019. World Population Prospects 2019, Volume II: Demographic Profiles: South Africa, Medium-variant projections for 2020–2100 are shown as thin coloured lines, and uncertainty is shown in lighter shades for 95 per cent prediction intervals, Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Population Division, New York (USA). Marianne in her presidential chains Figure 6 Need for CARE in civil engineering