South African Qualifications Authority & Quality Council for Trades &Occupations on their 2013/14 Annual Reports

Meeting report

Quality Council for Trades and Occupations (QCTO) 2013/14 Annual Report
Ms Joyce Mashabela, Chief Executive Officer, Quality Council for Trades and Occupations introduced the Chairperson of the Council (QCTO), Prof Peliwe Lolwana, and Ms Ndhivu Madilonga, Chief Financial Officer. She gave an introduction to the Annual Report and set out the mandate of the organisation, which was to ensure that occupational qualifications were developed, and quality was assured. The Council was to manage the Occupational Qualifications Sub Framework (OQSF).

She noted that in this financial year there had been staff appointments at all levels, including permanent staff and the permanent appointments were now at 32 employees. The QCTO had established Qualifications, Assessment and Accreditation and Audit and Risk Committees, which were fully operational, and had appointed an internal audit unit. A full range of policies had been developed and approved, there had been an implementation of an accrual accounting system and QCTO had been able to move into its its own premises and no longer operated within the Department of Higher Education and Training (DHET) offices.

QCTO had two programmes, from which it was able to list its predetermined objectives. The first programme focused on administration and the second on qualifications management. Its staff had some difficulties in dealing with the operations of the organisation and that may have lead to further challenges, such as IT systems not being developed, and data and information being outdated.

Ms Madilonga said the revenue was sourced from different places, some was received by way of grants from Sector Education and Training Authorities (SETAs) and the DHET and the National Science Foundation (NSF) funds, as well as the organisation having its own streams of income. Its revenue had increased from R21.189 million in 2012/13, to R38.571 million in 2013/14, and it had overspent in the last financial year, by R1.883 million. She added that the organisation had prepared a report on some of its findings, causes and on the remedial actions which it planned to implement in the following year.

Discussion
Dr B Bozzoli (DA) said the organisation had not achieved any of the targets set for itself and it had not seemed that the management team was able to put strategic plans together. The number of students assessed was low and the fact that QCTO was not meeting its targets was a major concern.

Ms M Nkadimeng (ANC) asked why the organisation had failed to submit relevant documents to the Auditor-General and thought that perhaps an induction programme was needed to help the organisation to achieve its targets.

Ms S Mchunu (ANC) said the organisation was making a lot of effort, but agreed that it was not meeting its targets and wanted to know what the main cause was of this situation.

Mr E Siwela (ANC) asked if the relocation to new offices would bring about a positive effect on the organisation and help it achieve its targets.

Mr C Kekana (ANC) criticised the Annual Report as being "thin" and said he had expected the QCTO to give substantially more details about its programmes and the mandate of the organisation. He asked the organisation what it meant when it spoke about "the trade of learners".

Ms Mashabela responded that there had been interventions in the organisation because there was not a clear direction in the beginning and the Strategic Plans had been drawn without a clear vision of where the organisation, as a new body, wanted to go. QCTO had now established new ways of collecting information and of assessing which of the students had passed, and which had not. She assured the Committee that it would see a substantial improvement in the organisation by the following year.

Prof Lolwana said the QCTO was responsible for quality assurance that ensured that learners received qualifications that will enable them to get jobs, and it was not a service provider.

Dr Bozzoli said the financial results did not add up and if the QCTO wanted to assess the quality of work of others, then it had to produce quality of work itself.

The Chairperson asked why QCTO did not meet its targets when it have a qualifications, assessment and accreditation and audit and risk committee that was fully operational within the organisation. The organisation could not ask the Committee to sympathise with it simply because it was a new organisation. She felt that it was not a good idea to resile from the Memorandum of Agreement (MoA) with the DHET, and said it would be good for future collaborations, and to help it improve its service delivery.

Ms Mashabela responded that the purpose of the MoU was for the QCTO to operate on its own but it was still being monitored by the Department. The real successes of the organisation could perhaps be seen in the fact that the QCTO had managed to become independent from the Department and was functioning on its own.

Prof Lolwana said the QCTO understood the urgency of improving and meeting its targets.

The Chairperson said the organisation did indeed need to improve and its surplus was not impressive. She suggested that it must cut down on administration costs and realise that the people were getting impatient and wanted services delivered.

South African Qualifications Authority (SAQA) 2013/14 Annual Report briefing
Mr Johnson Njeke, Chairperson, Mr Joe Samuels, Chief Executive Officer, Ms Julie Reddy, Deputy Chief Executive Officer and Mr Mark Albertyn, Chief Financial Officer attended the meeting on behalf of the South African Qualifications Authority (SAQA).

Mr Samuels said the main objectives of SAQA were to create a single integrated national framework for learning achievements, enhance the quality of education and training and facilitate access, mobility and progression within education, training and career paths.  He outlined its governance activities, its goals for 2013/2014 and the objectives that were achieved.

He noted that the achievements of SAQA in this financial year included:
- implementing the requirements of the National Qualifications Framework (NQF)Act
- monitoring and reporting on the implementation of the Act
- providing leadership in regulatory and policy debates and contribution to government policy
- securing funding that was sustainable
- ensuring research credibility to direct and steer policy and legislative debates.

SAQA had gained 1.9 million radio listeners, 359 949 mobile site visits, 6 677 Facebook "likes" and 180 000 people had attended its exhibitions.

Mr Albertyn said SAQA had managed to achieved its 17th unqualified audit report from the Auditor-General (AG), and this year this was also a clean audit. The AG had found that funds were managed responsibly, efficiently and effectively. Its revenue collection came from government grants, rental incomes, sundry incomes, evaluation fees, verification fees income and career development services projects. The total revenue received was R123 441 000. The programme expenditure was set out and was broken down into administration and support costs, directorate recognition and registration costs, national learners' records database, including verification projects, and the foreign qualifications evaluation and advisory services. It had spent R121 503 000.

Mr Samuels noted that it advised people to do their research before registering for a qualification and to check that the qualification was accredited by SAQA.

Discussion  
Dr Bozzoli asked if there was a link between the organisation not having sufficient money and vacancies not being filled. She asked what was meant by "teacher migration".

Ms J Kilian (ANC) asked how SAQA would ensure that it did not lose the people who had been part of the training and development in the organisation to the private sector, who may offer these people more money, and also asked what processes SAQA had taken to deal with fake qualifications.

Ms Reddy responded that "teacher migration' referred to the teachers who moved out of the country to go and work in another country. Many of the people involved with the education and training under SAQA were receiving a bursary and if those people decided to leave they would no longer qualify to have the bursary. They also signed contracts which bound them legally to the organisation to work for it a certain period of time.

Mr Abertyn added that during the 2013/14 year SAQA had tried to save money because it was aware of the budgetary constraints and knew that money problems would arise again if it was not careful. For this reason, some of the vacancies had not been filled, on purpose.

The Chairperson noted that there were no further questions.

The meeting was adjourned.