STAFF DEVELOPMENT The Academy opened its first campus in Oshogbo in 2011, from which more than 550 students have graduated and gained employment within the Group. The Oshogbo campus can train 80 students at a time and will expand this number to 100 in the near future. A second campus has been opened at Obajana Cement Plant in Kogi State providing classrooms and workshops as well as accommodation for more than 400 students. The Obajana campus will be the Academy’s flagship Centre of learning in the coming years and will provide training for staff from Dangote Cement factories across Africa. It will be equipped with classrooms, high-tech workshops and machine simulators to train students in the use of key manufacturing systems. Staff learning new skills at Dangote Academy Dangote Academy The Dangote Academy was established in 2010 to provide training in technical and management skills for employees and people wishing to join the Dangote Group of companies. It was created in recognition of the fact that we cannot rely on Universities and Colleges to provide the very specialised technical and managerial training required to run major industrial factories such as ours, particularly in the large numbers of such people that we will need. Therefore, the Academy’s aims are as follows: • To be the umbrella organisation for all talent development and learning initiatives in the Group • To provide facility and platform for technical skills acquisition benchmarked to world-class standards • To attract and develop high-quality talent from secondary and tertiary institutions through a structured process • To align our skills development to the rapid changes in technologies by building long-term relationships with OEMs and institutions of learning 32 Annual Report 2016 The Academy works with industrial partners such as Haver & Boecker, FLSmidth, Loesche, Siemens and other OEMs to provide high-quality training in cement production and maintenance. It is collaborating with a German consortium to establish the German model of Dual Vocational Education System at Dangote Academy. Key initiatives include the Graduate Engineers Training Scheme (GETS), the Vocational Training Scheme (VTS) and the Junior Technician Scheme (JTS). Graduate Engineers Training Scheme (GETS) The GETS enables young engineers to pursue a career in Dangote Group. The scheme prepares fresh engineering graduates with the necessary technical and supervisory skills to become team leaders, thus meeting our middle-level manpower requirements. Operating in four phases, GETS begins with basic engineering theory workshop skills, progressing to IT and personal skills, plant skills and more advanced training in management and leadership. Graduates from this scheme will go on to become highly skilled plant engineers in Nigeria and Pan-Africa. Vocational Training Scheme (VTS) The VTS offers training for students in basic trades such as welding and fabrication, fitting and mechanical maintenance, heavy-duty automobile maintenance,
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