NQF has a future!

[garthu]

This was based on the fact that the country has become so driven with the NQF systems and proving your ability in your line... It's a true story!

Recently I was on the way from Bloemfontein to Johannesburg and I was stopped for speeding by a traffic officer. There were 3 cops and no other “customers”. Before she could write the ticket, I asked her who the device operator was. When she told me his name, I politely requested that he provide me with his ID document and his certificate of competency to operate the speed trapping device. She went to the operator, came back, and said: “Sir, he says that he is very busy, you may go”. Score one for new-found knowledge!

Imagine the loopholes, never considered before that this could all create!

[Dave A]

The product of an environment obsessed with bureaucratic certification.

Ironically I spent most of today in a briefing session about the new Organisational Framework of Occupations (OFO). The rules around training and certification are in for something of a revolution, by the looks of things.

[insulin]

The NQF.

If I may... Is the NQF being recognized at all? I am NQF qualified and I am still working for a useless company. “Don’t tell my boss” Anyway most of my qualifications is NQF 4 and 3 with a few 2 between them. Still I am considered to be unschooled because I am not matriculated. I was told that the N qualification is the only qualification that is recognized. Then I was told by the college that they are not accepting new enrolments. CTC told me that they do not accept private students... So no education points to me sitting where I sit with NQF papers that I can use to whip my feed on.

[Dave A]

Hmm. There's all sorts of funny papers going around and people get the wrong idea. A good starting point is to do a search for your qualification here. Is it a registered qualification, and at what level?

[garthu]

Interesting... not sure i have the answers there. What i can say is we have basically been put in a no choice position. Get NQF4 or get out of the industry, principles like myself NQF5 which hasn't even been laid out yet - in other words according to the law every principle agent in the country is now illegal! Just a bit of forward thinking... not!

My wife is also not Matriculated, but still had no choice but to carry on with NQF4 which she did fine. She had to do extra "subjects", one being being proof of english ability. The way i understand now is that regardless of matric, she stands as qualified and cannot be turned away from industry based on Metric anymore. Like i say could stand to be corrected

[Dave A]

If the qualification requirements to perform a certain job changes so as to exclude people who are currently doing that function perfectly legitimately as things stand now, there needs to be some sort of a grandfather clause to accomodate those people.

The basic idea is you can't change the rules and in the course of doing so exclude people who are already earning a living in that occupation.

[insulin]

First of all thank you for trying to answer this strange question.

My NQF 4 is the real deal as far as I can tell. But again no nice new job no real life improvement or being recognized as a schooled individual. I spend a lot of time in doing the training courses and paid a lot for those courses. Really it was a massif amount of money for the training courses but at the time I thought it is an investment towards my future so I closed my eyes and did the deed.

Sadly no joy... So I gave up on trying to better myself because large companies still view me as an unschooled individual.

[Dave A]

Being qualified doesn't guarantee you a job, or a decent job - it should improve your chances though. Insulin, what industry segment are your qualifications in?

[Yvonne]

Ironically I spent most of today in a briefing session about the new Organisational Framework of Occupations (OFO). The rules around training and certification are in for something of a revolution, by the looks of things.

Dave, please can you elaborate on this!

Yvonne

[Dave A]

I'm going to try to keep to a short answer.

It's probably no secret that Department of Labour and Department of Education have been butting heads over skills development. What probably isn't properly understood is the problem is not just one of territory; there is a fundamental clash. What Labour wants to recognise via training and certification is somewhat different to Education's idea of what education and training should consist of.

It comes down to Rules of Combination and to some extent Due Process. Perhaps the easiest way to illustrate this is with an example.

Let's say you want to train and certify someone as a machine minder in the textile industry. From an occupation point of view you identify a set of skills and knowledge that is required, put together a set of unit standards and paste it together into a skills course. Except the only way to register a unit standard is as part of a qualification. And to register a qualification the collection of unit standards that make up the qualification has to meet the Rules of Combination. And the Rules of Combination were drawn up and are protected by ivory tower academics who are clearly anal retentive.*

So what do you do if there isn't a registered unit standard that you need for a particular occupation?

Currently you have to develop a whole qualification. And people have been doing just that - mostly useless, unused and unwanted qualifications simply to find a way past the barriers that get thrown up.

Then we get to the rules of combination. What if the qualification is NQF level 4, but the on-the-ground maths level only needs to be NQF level 1? You can't do it. You have to include a minimum of NQF level 2 maths in the qualification, and even then expect a fight for it to be NQF level 3.

But the OFO is set to change all that.

Basically it will be an alternative route to certification without all the fiddling around. The main benefit is training and certification will be occupation specific, quite literally defined by the demands of that occupation, and the learners who come through the system should be really close to deployable immediately.

*I'm waiting to be slapped for that comment but whatever the flak, it was worth it.

[garthu]

Certainly not going to slap.. rather praise that comment

Agree 100%. In the standards we had to do for qualification in real estate, one of the things that stood out for me is the english language/definitions alone were alot to cope with - not everyone, who might be quite capable in the industry, would be able to cope with the high level, above matric, languauge that was used. Also macro/micro economy. A fairly deep understanding was required. Didn't get it, didn't make sense. Ground level education would have made far more sense. Very little on the ethical standards/laws. You can slip through with a distant understanding of the laws, BUT that makes up 90% of the business.

Also did another unit based qualification that really didn't make sense most of the time, hard as hell, but content was wrong!

[Chatmaster]

*I'm waiting to be slapped for that comment but whatever the flak, it was worth it.

You are spot on with that remark Dave. One of the major issues I have with the entire SAQA, NQF, SDF Umalusi, DHE, SETA etc. is the fact that the people compiling these Unit Standards are often people that has never worked in the particular industry. Now let's say for example I wish to create a qualification for Internet Marketing, I have several problems, in finding the appropriate Unit Standards to compile the qualification, secondly the NQF levels that limits me through the SETA's are also a problem, especial as certain US are at NQF 6 levels, which can be a headache to get approved, not to mention the fact that I have to get a memorandum of understanding between the ISETSETA and the Services SETA because some of the Unit Standards are with different SETA's.

Further more if you go and look at existing qualifications you will find the same issue, where for example a Marketing Management qualification contains a Unit Standard where the individual are actually taught how to physically design a website opposed to how to manage the outsourcing of the design.

There are so many of these examples it is sickening. The NQF is a fantastic concept and I am a full supporter of it, but there are many issues with it still. It is also a serious pity that the Universities doesn't seem to agree with me.

[insulin]

I will not argue with your logic.

You are right in every respect regarding this system. However most companies remain arrogant to this system because if they don’t recognise it they get good qualified workers to work for them for little pay and no benefits.

Thus profiting on skilled labour that is working for less money. This is what is happening right now. Point blank we say your qualifications are meaningless thus you work for R3000 per month and yet the skills are worth much more than that. So what to do. Complain about? You will not change their minds because profit dictates that they must remain naive.

So what do we do? There is nothing we can do because we don’t make the laws. No... People with money make the laws. As long as this fact remains fact then education and training will suffer dearly thus robbing the nation of skill and intellect.

And robbing the individual from a sustainable lifestyle. In the end we will see more teenage suicides, suicides, alcohol abuse, drug abuse and crime. I really don’t see a sustainable future...

I see a people that will be intellectually r@ped and left for dead.