There have been quite a few articles about this in general, but please note, as things stand, none of the three QCTO first aid curricula are under review by HWSETA and QCTO. Not the basic, intermediate, or advanced. This relates to skills programs SP230801, 230802, or 230803. None of them are ‘frozen’ or ‘paused’. Training providers are actively applying for them and training them on a daily basis. And can continue to do so. This article is about a complaint made against the curriculum by a non-expert that was granted a meeting.
In attendance were members of the focus group that developed the original curriculum. Namely Kathy Bodmer at pec.co.za, Alistair Farish at absolutehealth.co.za , Abram Lourens at sibanyestillwater.com, Graham Pearson representing saiosh.co.za (all subject matter experts). Then there’s myself, Reuben Jensen at LimeGreenTraining.co.za. It was also attended by Ben van As the curriculum developer and consultant for HWSETA, Dalene Sheasby, members of SAPS, and Rosina Mafetsa at hpcsa.co.za. The meeting was chaired by Lufuno Thovhakale, Deputy Director Qualification Maintenance at QCTO.
To hear the complaint of the the single party / complainant / complainer, Ken at Intra. The meeting was given to him by the QCTO purely to hear out his complaint about the QCTO basic first aid course. The meeting was booked as an “Input session”.
We listened to his speeches, criticism, and opinions about law in general, QCTO process in general, and the curriculum in general. The complaint was supposed to be direct. It was supposed to be in the form of a copy of the curriculum with direct comments on it, but he told us to read and enjoy his 24 page opinion article instead. Direct comments would have been a productive way to request changes and he was directly asked to do this but did not.
We managed to reduce some of what he was saying to direct comments. They included:
We suggested QCTO add back the allowance of SANC registered nurses. When the curriculum was originally submitted to QCTO and HWSETA by the focus group we recommended that SANC registered nurses ARE accepted as suitably qualified to train first aid level 3. This was removed during processing at HWSETA and QCTO, and there was discussion about putting it back. This and other matters were already noted back in September 2023 in my first article about this curriculum straight after it went live.
The learner’s progression through the three levels was discussed. The result was that the progression remains as it is. Learners will need to be competent in one level before advancing to the next one. This means they will need to have their level 1 (SP230801) certificate before starting level 2 (SP230802) and so on.
NB: This is entirely my opinion:
It is my opinion that QCTO is extremely fortunate to have subject matter expert’s like Kathy, Alistair, Abram, and Graham who were willing to give up many hours of their time to help develop the curriculum in 2023, and then to also attend meetings (plural) about other matters relating to it, including this general complaint by a non-expert.
I feel my time was squandered. Only a few small things were discussed, most of the time was taken up listening to the complainer speak about general things that were not direct comments and were not actionable items.
The meeting in its entirety was 4.5 hours! It was extremely generous of the focus group to give up such a large amount of time to hear out a lone complainer’s complaint. He named a lot of people he believes are in support of his complaint, but again no one else attended with him in support or sent a letter expressing solidarity.
QCTO acknowledged my comments on this: The complainer was aware of the curriculum development process while it was underway back in 2023. But was running a parallel process against the development of the curricula instead of just attending and having his say while the public was invited to comment and participate in the development process. That remains a major point here. He was not unaware or incapacitated, he wrote long articles criticising the process while it was underway; at the same time.
The complainer was given this 4.5 hours session on 27th May 2024 to make his complaint, but was also gifted other meetings before this one to hear out his complaints. While some attendees (very understandably) dropped out of this meeting early at least 10 people stayed for the entire 4.5 hours! We certainly cannot blame the audience.
Yet no ground breaking discoveries were made that needed urgent attention despite all the fanfare that has been made by the complainer leading up to this point.
It was also not well received when the complainer announced that everyone involved in the development of the basic first aid curriculum “are amateurs”. He then tried to reframe this to a general “we are all amateurs in some way” but we could not agree with him on that either, because while he may be an amateur, we are not. We are experts in our respective fields.
I hope that QCTO does not grant another meeting to the complainer given all the above. I believe he was given more than what was fair.
No. The curriculum remains unchanged after this interaction. That does not mean the curriculum will never change. It is just not changing yet.
