Registration has opened for the 2023 Business of Consulting Engineering (BCE) Management Development Programme (MDP); this was the announcement by the School of Consulting Engineering’s (SCE) manager Brenda Lacey-Smith at the recent Infrastructure Indaba hosted by Consulting Engineers South Africa (CESA).
Professionals who have successfully completed the BCE-MDP. Image credit: CESA
Offered by CESA, the programme is aimed at “turning good engineers into excellent engineers”. Over the years, the programme has produced an impressive number of young professionals with some taking up greater responsibilities in their companies while others have been bitten by the entrepreneurial bug and are thriving in the consulting engineering industry.
Consulting engineering companies have benefitted from their employees’ enrolment in the BCE management development programme. Knight Piésold Southern Africa chief executive officer Vishal Haripersad says their experience with the BCE has been excellent in terms of how it has opened the minds of their staff who have gone through the programme, and it has put them in a good position to add further value to the company. “We find that when engineering graduates obtain their qualifications, they need a well-rounded education around consulting engineering and although the technical side of engineering is developed in a structured manner the BCE management development programme provides this same structure to the non-technical skills by actually providing that format of education,” says Haripersad.
Lacey-Smith stated that, “We have witnessed a large number of our past students making major career progressions on completion of the BCE programme, which is in line with our vision of developing our industry’s future leaders. It is a programme developed by the industry for the industry.” Lacey-Smith says the CESA one-year flagship BCE programme is designed for engineers and other professionals in the built environment who want to progress their careers in the Consulting Engineering profession. “We also want to encourage consulting engineering firms to not only upskill their Young Professionals but to also use the BCE-MDP as a structured B-BBEE supplier development programme,” she says.
Over 50 subjects are covered on the programme, with modules focusing on project delivery, consulting engineering environment, business and project finance, legal and contractual law, as well as other inter-personal development subjects. The programme enables students to learn from the best, courtesy of the BCE’s 15 subject matter experts, who are highly experienced, local industry practitioners. Enrolment into the programme is limited to 25 students, annually, who are selected on a first come first served basis provided they meet the requirements for entry.
Prospective students can register by visiting https://www.cesa.co.za/sce/bce-main-overview/
