Chemical Technology February 2015

Overtaken by time:

The time for change was yesterday

Comment

have, for many years, harboured some

inexplicable faith in time. I have always

known that it is an ingredient in almost every

change, be it positive or negative. However,

in this 'Comment', I want to share something

rather more remote from the obvious. To some

extent I have lamented about the issue I seek

to raise, albeit in a softer tone. I have decided

to adopt a harder tone this time round. Who

knows, it might just strike the right chord.

This world has changed drastically in the

last 20 years. Issues on scarcity of resources

have never been more pronounced. Water,

energy and even food have taken the centre

stage as threatened resources. As it is, South

Africa is going through what I would appropri-

ately call the dark phase, due to lack of reli-

able electricity supply. A plethora of possible

solutions to this situation have been proposed,

ranging from independent power suppliers or

producers, to embracing nuclear energy as a

sizeable part of our energy mix.

There have also been suggestions of pos-

sible shale gas explorations, so called hydraulic

fracturing, even at government level. If my

memory serves me well, it was only about

six years ago when we experienced the same

frequency of blackouts. Whatever the rea-

sons provided, the reality is that the supply

is outstripping demand. But why would any

living nation suffer the same consequences

from the same fate, particularly where every

other serious nation has found sustainable

solutions? Isn’t this characteristic of a nation

blind to change? Water has clearly proven that

its abundance is nothing less than an illusion.

Many places in this country are suffering

droughts such as have never been experienced

in recent times. Extreme levels of poverty are

also disconcerting.

What all this means is that the world is a

dynamic place and South Africa is no excep-

tion. The difference, though, is that elsewhere

around the world this dynamism is understood

and people adjust and adapt accordingly. In

South Africa, on the other hand, it is the direct

opposite.

Having said so, it would be utterly naïve to

expect that every person in this country should

have solutions to our current problems. How-

ever, our engineers, regardless of discipline,

should. The progress or regress of any nation is

characteristic of the calibre of its engineers. Is

this not the time we should be asking ourselves

if our engineers still have the capacity to pro-

vide solutions? The answer to this question is

very obvious, but so unpalatable that I choose

not to mention it.

We could go a bit further and ask another

question: are the institutions that are meant to

be producing these engineers still relevant to

the world we find ourselves in? Again, I would

rather not answer this question. As I write this

‘Comment’, I am visiting a few universities

in the USA, which have recently completed a

government-funded project to review engineer-

ing curricula across all disciplines in order to

render them relevant to the needs of today. The

results have been remarkable, with almost all

disciplines undergoing serious revamp.

This exercise should be natural in any en-

vironment where people understand that the

world is changing. We should also remember

that any university is only relevant insofar as it

continues to produce graduates that serve to

advance the lives of the communities they are

meant to serve. This is even more so in engi-

neering. Any deviation from this fundamental

fact, suggests otherwise about the university. I

have a feeling that, before we know it, we will be

producing engineers who are fit for extinction.

Our university programmes should be relevant

to the real problems of today and tomorrow. The

time for change was yesterday!

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Chemical Technology • February 2015