Has CETA experienced any difficulties when through its role as an ETQA it walked into the same turf as other ETQAs like the CHE? How much of a problem has this been?
A:
Achieving the ETQA status and a subsequent favourable audit was necessary from the CETA quality assurance aspect. During the transfer of ITB to CETA, several trades were inherited by other SETAs, hence the creation of duplications. However this is being rectified through various forums including the signing of inter- SETA MOU’s. With regards to CHE, the two bodies are running in parallel since the SETAs inception. Even though the SETAs can register qualifications from Level 5 upward, they cannot quality assure these qualifications as they fall within the CHE.
Q:
How has CETA gone about overcoming these difficulties and what strategies has it developed to operate more efficiently?
A:
For the past two years much effort has been put into reducing the lack of available learnerships and today more than 50 learnership programmes have been registered. Some gaps still exist in the higher education levels and in some specialized sections where CETA is now supporting the development of qualifications and subsequently the registration of related learnerships. More than 30 training providers have been accredited against various qualifications and are now in the position to offer learnerships. Learning materials for some learnerships have been funded by CETA and is available to all training providers. At the moment CETA is underway to fund the complete development and production of the all learning materials and assessment tools necessary to run all 24 presently CETA contracted learnerships. In order to overcome the challenge of the duration of learnerships, CETA is promoting and supporting group-training schemes. This is where learners are rotated within a defined group of employers and workplaces in order to secure a continued workplace experience.
In addition, CETA has improved the marketing and communication strategies, hence improving necessary relationships with the key industry stakeholders like MBA, SABTACO etc. Workplace Skills Plan Agents are also available to provide assistance to the industry. Improving the incentives for taking learnerships
Q:
What have been the major challenges and obstacles for CETA in fulfilling its mandate of designing and registering learnerships, accrediting providers and paying out the 1% skills levy?
A:
In the few years of CETA's existence it is pleasing to remark that major inroads have been achieved in setting the scene for the skills development environment. The inception phase is marred with some trials and errors, and we have learnt and implemented adequate processes and systems that enable timely delivery to the intended stakeholders.
The initial problem in making learnerships available to the market has been the lack of NQF-
based qualifications available that enabled CETA to register and design learnerships.
With ongoing development of learnerships, another major challenge for CETA has been the
availability of accredited training providers in the sector.
This goes hand in hand with the availability of learning material and assessment tools for the
various programmes.
From the onset, a major obstacle is the duration of learnerships being long-term training
programmes of a minimum of one year. Construction companies in majority are operating on contract basis and many times cannot contract learners into such long-term learnership agreements.
