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About Us STAFF DEVELOPMENT instrumentation, automation, electrical maintenance and process operation. Five streams each of GETS and VTS trainees, in batches of about 50 students, have been trained since 2010. About 90% of those who graduated have since found employment with Dangote Cement. Junior Technician Scheme (JTS) The JTS is the latest addition to the Academy’s learning initiatives and was conceived as a supporting scheme to the Vocational Training Scheme. The intakes usually come from various Technical Colleges in Nigeria. The 18-month scheme has graduated its first and second batches of JTS Trainees, totalling 143. They were trained in areas such as workshop skills, welding and fabrication, fitting and mechanical maintenance, heavy earth-moving machine maintenance, electrical and instrumentation skills, all of which are vital to the continuing good maintenance of our plants. In addition, they were exposed to intensive ‘‘on-the-job’’ training at our various plants at Obajana and Ibese including workshop practice at Oshogbo Plant. The second batch of Junior Technician Scheme trainees completed their 18-month training programme at the Academy in April, 2016. So far, about 40 of them have been offered full time jobs in the Group, while others are at various stages of the recruitment process. Management development and foundational skills training We have inaugurated a Management Development Centre at our Ikeja campus. The focus of this centre is to equip existing staff with basic skills and to sharpen their management and leadership skills to become more productive in their current roles, preparing them for future leadership positions in the Group. This foundational skills training is being delivered by Dangote Academy with support from external vendors who have been certified for their competencies through a very rigorous selection process. Each of the programmes delivered by them is monitored for quality and continuous improvement. The content of these programmes has been designed to keep in mind the roles and responsibilities, level of participants’ experience and the skills gaps that have been identified. By the end of 2016, the Dangote Academy had delivered 202 programmes covering approximately 35 businessrelevant themes critical to the organisation. Since the creation of the Academy, approximately 7,000 staff have been trained in various function-specific and foundational skills programmes. In addition to the foundational skills programmes started in 2015, the Academy introduced functionspecific programmes in 2016 to support various business areas, based on needs analysis and the competency development gaps identified within them. We will expand the scope and operation of these in 2017. Furthermore, we will extend the foundational skills training across Africa to cater to the needs of our staff working at our various operations in various countries in the continent. We propose to cover Senegal, Cameroon, Ethiopia, Tanzania and Zambia during the coming year. We encourage staff to participate in continuing educational initiatives that are designed to improve their overall levels of competence in business. Future of the Dangote Academy As our Group expands, the Academy will expand in both geography and scope with the establishment of regional satellite academies to support the Pan-African businesses. The operations of these academies will remain centrally guided, for consistency and quality, but will be executed locally. We have ambitious plans to develop the Dangote Academy beyond its technical training roots and transform it into a Technology & Management Institute. We hope it will ultimately evolve into a University of Technology & Management. Annual Report 2016 33

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