MISA Young Graduate Programme

Written by Thabo MokoenaSenior Education Editor

Reviewed & verified by Naledi KhumaloSenior Admissions and Bursaries EditorVerified

The Municipal Infrastructure Support Agent (MISA) is a government component of the Department of Cooperative Governance whose job is to give municipalities technical support and build their capacity to plan, deliver, run and maintain infrastructure. Its Young Graduate Programme hires unemployed civil engineering, electrical engineering and town planning graduates, places them in municipalities and supports them until they can register as professionals. The 2025/26 intake closed on 1 February 2026. MISA has not advertised a 2026/27 graduate intake.

Candidacy towards ECSA or SACPLAN registration

MISA calls this a candidacy programme. Graduates follow a structured work plan aimed at registration as professional technicians, technologists or engineers under the Engineering Profession Act of 2000, or as planners with the South African Council for Planners (SACPLAN) under the Planning Profession Act of 2002. When MISA welcomed 96 young graduates in March 2022, its chief executive described the goal as raising the number of professionally registered officials in municipal infrastructure departments, because infrastructure management is a regulated field.

Graduates sign a contract with MISA and are placed in municipalities in the province they chose, depending on each municipality’s needs and its capacity to give relevant experience. They must accept structured training and rotation to district municipalities and private-sector consulting firms. MISA pays a monthly stipend, which it does not quantify, and provides experienced mentors. It does not promise a job at the end.

Two, three or four years

MISA’s documents give different lengths. The programme web page calls it a two- to three-year candidacy programme. The 2025/26 advert says successful candidates enter a three- to four-year internship contract depending on the discipline, and asks applicants to be available for at least 36 months of workplace deployment. Plan on at least three years, and confirm the term in the contract you are offered.

Qualifications on the 2025/26 advert

Applicants must be unemployed South African citizens who graduated from a university or university of technology. The programme is open to all, but MISA encourages applicants from historically disadvantaged backgrounds and gives them preference. Women, people with disabilities and former MISA bursary holders are also encouraged to apply. The application form asks whether you have already been on a learnership, apprenticeship or experiential learning programme, and about any public service employment.

Mentors for about 100 candidates

A tender MISA issued in September 2026 shows the current size of the programme. MISA is looking for a professional service provider to mentor an estimated 100 Young Graduate candidates in civil and electrical engineering across all nine provinces for 12 months: 14 registered civil engineers for 68 mentees and six registered electrical engineers for 32 mentees. The tender closes on 2 October 2026. It concerns graduates already on the programme, not a new intake.

One emailed document, reference YG 01/2025/26

For the 2025/26 intake (reference YG 01/2025/26), applicants downloaded the application form from the MISA Young Graduates Programme page, completed sections A to F in black ink, signed it and named their province and discipline. The form had to be scanned together with a covering letter, a full CV, certified copies of qualifications and the ID, and proof of residential address, and emailed as a single file, not split into parts, to young.graduates2025@misa.gov.za.

Shortlisted applicants were checked for qualifications, past employment, credit, criminal record, company directorships and references. MISA writes only to successful candidates, and anyone who had no reply within 30 days of the closing date was to assume the application failed. Enquiries went to Mr Takalani Modau on 012 848 5506. Because the 2025/26 mailbox carried the year in its name, use whichever address appears in the next advert.

Students still studying towards these degrees can apply for the MISA bursary, and bursary holders are encouraged to join the graduate programme later. See also the MISA provider profile and our civil engineering bursaries list.

FAQs

About MISA

National government component (under CoGTA)

The Municipal Infrastructure Support Agent (MISA) is a national government component established under Section 7(2) and Schedule 3 of the Public Service Act of 1994. MISA is accountable to the Minister for Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs, and…

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