Changes To Learnerships And Part Qualifications Coming This Year

HR Managers and Training Managers would be well advised to acquaint themselves with the learnership changes coming into play this year.

Many companies do not know about the changes that are coming regarding learnerships and part qualifications in South Africa. And, if they do not know about them, they’ll probably not be able to acquire a BEE scorecard and will have an issue with their Workplace Skills Plan.

In a nutshell, all pre 2009 qualifications and unit standards still being used today are being stopped or deregistered. Companies therefore will soon no longer be able to get accreditation for these qualifications. The last date for accreditation of these qualifications is 30 June this year. While that’s the date these qualifications will end, SETAs have already started phasing them out because they’re moving to the Quality Council for Trades and Occupations (QCTO).

What essentially is happening is that learnerships are changing in how they should be implemented and, if you don’t implement them correctly, you will spend time and money doing them like you’ve always done them and they’re not going to be valid. Then, when the verification people arrive, everything is going to fall flat. So, as a company, if your Training Provider is not telling you that you have to change to the new QCTO system, you are going to do it incorrectly. Some providers are not ready to deliver it in the new way.

Essentially, every single unit standard in South Africa is being deregistered because of the move to the QCTO system. We will not have unit standards anymore. Everything will be curriculum based. So we’re moving away from the unit standard system and going back to a curriculum-based system. Every single qualification, every single training programme that is accredited with a SETA according to unit standards will therefore no longer exist. They will need to be redone at the QCTO.

So unit standards cannot be registered or accredited after 30 June this year. And you cannot use those unit standards anymore after June 30. As of June next year (2024), you cannot do any learnerships or part qualifications in South Africa unless it is accredited with the QCTO. Bear in mind that accreditation takes a year.

What happens at this time of the year is that people start doing their Workplace Skills Plans when they decide what they’re going to do for the year. And these plans will be approved because very few people know about these changes.

A company therefore decides they’re going to do certain learnerships with certain employees. So they plan them and they’re approved. The Board approves the budget, and they start training. Everything goes well, because they still have 18 months before they are in trouble. Next year, they do the same thing. But because of the dates, while they can start the training next year, they won’t be able to exit, which means that their plan falls apart because, at the end of the day, when they have to submit their Annual Training Report, it would not have been completed because there won’t be any results from the right place. Providers might then start printing results themselves to get out of trouble.

Everyone appears to be in denial at the moment. The only people who know what’s happening are those at the QTCO and a few other informed providers. Everyone else appears to be thinking, “Nah, it’s not going to happen. We’re not going to put effort into it.”

HR and Training take note

The problem is it is indeed going to happen. There is no way that it will not happen. It’s therefore important that HR Managers and Training Managers take note and not wait for their training providers to tell them this.

Providers are not telling their clients about this because those clients are going to start looking elsewhere for other options. Sadly, there will be a number of training providers who will go out of business in the next year because they’re going to lose income.

Advice for HR and Training Managers

According to the QCTO OQM Circular 1 of 2022 sent to Skills Development Stakeholders, Sector Education Training Authorities, QCTO Quality Partners, Accredited Skills Development Providers, Accredited Assessment Centres and Professional Bodies:

“a. The learner registration end date for pre-2009 qualifications and unit standards on the OQSF shall be 30 June 2023.

b. The learner enrolment end date for pre-2009 qualifications and unit standards shall be 30 June 2024.

c. The learner achievement end date for pre-2009 qualifications and unit standards on the OQSF shall be 30 June 2027.”

This means learners can still complete their training by then. Keep in mind, if you have not registered the learner by that date, they can’t complete their training. The learner has to be registered by that date and has to start by that date, and at the latest can complete by that time, but then there are also rules. The rules for learnerships and qualification state that no qualification in South Africa can take longer than 18 months, which means the dates are in 2025.

Do your own research

The current ignorance and uncertainty is similar to that back in the day when HR Managers were asking, “What’s SAQA? What’s the NQF? What’s a unit standard? And what’s an SGB?”

Everybody either Googled these terms or did their own research. HR Managers must therefore do their own research to try and educate themselves so that they can ask the right questions of their service providers. If I as a service provider have a meeting about learnerships or part qualifications, a client will ask me, “Show me your accreditation. What is your BEE scorecard? Do you use your own material?”

It’s like they use a checklist. So an HR Manager must be sufficiently informed that, when they speak to an existing or a new service provider, they make sure that they comply and are aware of these developments because preparation must start now. They’re then not going to find themselves in a dead end street. Essentially, there is going to be QCTO accreditation, and if your provider doesn’t have it, it means they’re not accredited. Start preparing now and understand QCTO and where everything is moving to.

For more information on the above, view the following documents on the HR Future site: