Abstract
The South African foundry industry has an ageing workforce, and reports indicate a lack of skills in the full value chain. The University of Johannesburg Metal Casting Technology Station (UJ-MCTS), through the initiative from the Technology Innovation Agency funded by the Department of Science and Technology, has introduced a workplace placement programme that is aimed at placing students in industry for one year to gain foundry work experience and professional skills before graduating, with stipend paid and provided by UJ-MCTS. This paper reports on the UJ-MCTS experience. Secondary data (minutes from meetings, e-mails, project reports) as well as the authors’ direct experience (as first- hand information and collected data, archived as the UJ-MCTS internship programme database pre and post the internships) in the programme were used as research instruments, while observations at the end were used for the triangulation. The UJ-MCTS placed a total of 96 students in industry from 2009 to 2015, with an overall 60% being retained as employees after completing their one-year placement. The benefits gained by students and industry include working experience, graduation of the students, talent identification, and employment of the student to ameliorate some of the skill shortage. The study shows that through this workplace placement programme, the industry and students are in a win-win situation.