NEWSLETTER | 29 AUGUST 2018 | DUSTY CAR MONTH

The winds of change are blowing fiercely on the Highveld this month…not least of which has caused my car to be permanently layered with a gentle hue of dust! Never seen more clearly than when my neighbour’s sprinkler decided to bless the bonnet with their borehole rain. 🙂

Nevertheless, with so many anticipated (and some surprise) changes in the vocational training space we are certainly enjoying a varied and different view of the windy skills landscape.

As many returns to the car TLC centre as I’ve endured this month, so too are we in constant contact with the various Setas, QCTO and professional bodies to work out which qualifications are undergoing planned or actual rework….and which are still available for us to use in the legacy format. A process that keeps us on our Thrive toes and quite excited about a new, improved and streamlined South African system helping skills development to reach everyone in our dusty, beautiful country.

WHAT DO THE QCTO CHANGES ACTUALLY MEAN?
What the QCTO changes mean for us on the ground:

  • Providers applying for full qualifications first send a letter of intent through to QCTO – essentially a vetting process to ensure that the legacy qualification is still available to use, or in process of re-write, or indeed has been re-written in the QCTO format;
  • Once go-ahead is given we then apply to the designated quality assurance partner (QAP) – usually a Seta – for your accreditation;
  • The process is then more or less the same at this stage, with the exception of materials alignment, which varies depending on what format the qualification is in.

HOT OFF THE PRESS!!
As you may know, the Department of Higher Education and Training (DHET) has initiated a process to review the Workplace Skills Plan/Annual Report (WSP/ATR) template. It is expected that the WSP/ATR template will be replaced by a simplified template, the Workplace Skills Survey (WSS), upon finalisation of broader SETA landscape issues.

For those of you who don’t know yet, here is the SCOOP!  As an industry expert, Thrive’s very own effervescent Operational Manager and Maestro, Ingrid van Heerden, was invited to be a part of the WSP working committee!!

 

Her role on the committee is to give feedback and ideas on improving and streamlining the process. She is hoping that the survey will gather meaningful information that will report proficiently to DHET (Dept of Higher Education and Training).

Says Ingrid, “This annual document, the WSP (workplace skills plan) is currently cumbersome and highly administrative. Each Seta has its own template with widely differing criteria. Calls to streamline are finally being answered with this review and are currently being tested in what is called the WSS (workplace skills survey)”. Watch this space!

Our CT accreditation mini-workshop was well attended with enthusiastic and bright-eyed Cape Townians filled with questions and concerns. Hoping we managed to alleviate some of the burden and noticed that many of them left with a pep in their step.

“Insightful and the trainer gave the message across properly. Thank you very much.” 
Crystal Herboth – Standing Tall Recruitment and Advisory (PTY) Ltd 

“Excellent presentation! Vast areas were covered which is good for understanding.”
Dederick Ross – Damen Shipyards Cape Town

“Thank you! This course was very helpful and a real eye-opener for me!” 
Thuli Mbeti – Embrace Dignity

“Facilitator competent, confident and extremely knowledgeable – covered everything I needed.”  
Allan Bateman – The Training Institute for Property Professionals

“Very instructional, informative discussion. All possible scenarios covered. Thank you for the workshop and assistance in our application.” 
Bernadine Mons – SSTG

“Good for start-up companies! Well structured, enthusiastically delivered and pertinent. Well done!!!” 
Leon – Entrepeuneur 

“Excellent! Extremely informative. Andrea your workshop was of a high standard! Thank you for helping me understand the processes with Seta.” 
Angelique Thomson – Erase

Thrive is so proud of the hard work that our clients and team put into the successful achievement of SETA ACCREDITATION this month. Let’s hear a loud WHOOP WHOOP for:

Dynamic Deonie and the fabulous Omnicor for getting their Services Seta Accreditation! WHOOP!

Awesome Al and the teams at Rise Academy and Betterworths Construction Companyfor getting their Services Seta Accreditation! WHOOP!

And… Magical Margaret and both the Bosch Power Tool Team, and Nitro Training and their team for getting MerSetaAccreditation! WHOOP!

Congratulations everyone!!!!

COURSES AND WORKSHOPS 

Assessor course 
Dates: 20 – 21 September 2018 (10% discount if booked and paid for by 6 September), 15 – 16 November 2018 (10% discount if booked and paid for by 1 November.)
Venue: Randburg, www.benvenuto.co.za
Click here to register | Click here for further information. 

For now, life continues and we’re enjoying our usual rate of successful accreditations per month. Note though, that each QAP/Seta, each qualification and often each week is giving us varying and changing compliance requirements….it’s a case of rolling with the punches and seeing how we go 🙂

All the best in skills,
Andrea