It begins with you

Rosalie Manning & Bharti Vithal (KZNIA Vice President)

Rosalie Manning, SAIA’s transformation consultant, paid the KZNIA a visit on Friday 29th July, to present SAIA’s strategy for transformation as well as touch on a few other issues affecting this complex challenge to our country.

We filled up most of the chairs in the room as she walked us through the slides, with pockets of discussion happening at intervals. On the whole she was optimistic, and I tend to agree: its a big task but there are ways to make something of it.

Some of the issues that came up (among others) were:

• Standards of education in schools: with many learners getting a below-average education, the chances of them coping with an architectural degree, let alone making it through postgrad, are slim.
• Some ways to get involved in building school-learners’ competencies: giving time to schools to teach chess, annual competitions around these competencies & school holiday programs around architecture.
• SETA: the profession has a role to play here and various options exist.
• The role of SACAP and SAIA in this landscape
• Politically, if we are to act as a body we need a gateway: speaking to the right people in government. A lack of support from SACAP does not help here, and we will need to find ways around this.
• There were also some interesting fact sheets on the SA demographics and the architectural professions’ demographics and the disparity between them (I will try get hold of these and post later).
• The current recession plays a role in the profession’s activity in society and this must also not be underestimated.

If we all always assume its someone else’s responsibility then nothing will change.

Much to think about… what are YOUR thoughts? Feel free to comment below.

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