QCTO have released a document indicating they will start charging accreditation tariffs. Hopefully these tariffs will go toward improving QCTO’s services for private SDP’s and not just enhance their existing favouritism of govt TVETs and FETs. Also, some of the actual fee amounts need review.
CONTEXT: Articles on this website are generally for training providers who train short courses (skills programs and unit standards), who train OHS related topics, and who are private companies.
DATES: Dates matter, please see the date of each article you read. Dates matter because these are often developing situations.
Before reading: Please note that my target audience is the SDP who is ethical and offers high quality training. You are not my target audience if you willingly offer poor quality training and dilibertaely mislead learners into paying for accredited training but then deliver unaccredited training, or are unethical in your offering in a way that shipwrecks learners and clients who paid for training.
WIth that said:
Yes, QCTO intends to begin charging tariffs for each application for accreditation, starting this year (2025). Download the QCTO PDF on tariffs here. They intend to charge for each site too. They are already charging learners for each certificate.
To begin, you must understand that QCTO favours their own govt TVET, and FET institutions through which tax-appropriated money flows.
QCTO favours their govt institutions over private SDPs as the preferred delivery method for training in South Africa. If more admin and a lack of response, support, or attention from QCTO feels intentional to you, its because it is. The system of education, training, compliance, and regulation in South Africa opens gaps for you to fill as an entrepreneur. But understand that QCTO would rather just run their TVETs and FETs, and not deal with you at all. Similarly qualifications (726) outnumber skills programs (137) by a factor of 5 to date.
Is that not a bold claim? No. QCTO has different requirements for private vs government institutions; different rules and policies apply. They have a “cut out the middleman” campaign which directly communicates QCTO’s preference to have learners use their govt institutions over private ones. They have regular workshops for their TVETs and FETs, but I have yet to see even one workshop presented to recognise and support private SDPs who offer skills programs.
Furthermore, in QCTOs SDP correspondence I have seen them casually tell private SDPs that they do not have time for them because they are attending to their TVETs who take priority; as if this was something universally understood to be a higher priority.
I’m all for QCTO charging fees IF it means they offer real value to private SDPs and become more responsive and helpful to them. Competent consultants could spend a fraction of the time assisting each SDP. We could spend time on more valuable things like developing higher quality learning material. Private SDPs could even skip the use of consultants altogether if QCTO were helpful enough.
Private SDPs sometimes find it unpleasant dealing with a govt department running at e.g. 150% – 200% or more of their own turnaround time, if they simultaneously act like they are doing the SDP a huge favour. QCTO has been reported to do this.
This is the kind of thing the private sector hates and it is exactly why the Batho Pele white paper exists; because you have to deal with government departments and cannot go somewhere else like you can with the private sector. If QCTO improves their customer service, as required by the Batho Pele white paper, I see this as a win. If they are going to appropriate those funds from private SDPs and then not improve customer service to those very people they took the funds from, that is pouring contempt on contempt.
An example of this is the QCTO switchboard phone number that has not been answered in years. This is surely intentional. QCTO has been informed that the number is unattended. It is not that they can’t answer that phone, it is because if they pick it up there might be a customer on the other side who has questions. Again, according to the Batho Pele white paper, you are the customer and should expect good customer service from any government department.
SARS does not ban the use of bookeepers, home affairs does not ban the use of travel agents, DEL does not ban consultation with OHS specialists, so why does QCTO think it is ok to try ban accreditation consultants? Legally it is absurd to believe they can as described here.
But more importantly, it is QCTO that have created the need for accreditation consultants to exist, and should not be resentful when SDPs hire them. In the PDF posted above QCTO complains about consultants, and about SDP behaviour. Their complaints highlight the fact that QCTO is not understanding or engaging with their customer. QCTO raises issues, but they are issues they themselves have fostered. Understanding their obligation to their customer starts with actually recognising that private SDPs, including those who train short programs, are their customer to begin with.
QCTO’s chief complaint, and reason for charging fees is because “too many applicants apply but do not use their accreditation to train”. The blame must be shared by QCTO on this one because key to this problem is turnaround time.
Lately QCTO SDP applications in my care take on average of 5 – 6 months to reach completion (outliers are 4 – 7 months). Then, once the SDP is accredited, they often need regulatory body approval (e.g. DEL) on top of that. That also takes time (e.g. 2 – 3 months).
Once a SDP is QCTO accredited and finally starts to train, QCTO’s assessment department takes another 6 months or more to book the redundant QA verification visit when learner results are first submitted to them by the SDP (i.e. it cannot be concurrent with SDP applications, this is a new thing to wait for after the 6 months the SDP just spent waiting).
Together this totals to ABOUT A YEAR from the initial SDP application to the receipt of the very first learner certificate. And that is if you do everything right and as quickly as you can. Some SDPs make honest mistakes that extend this time. Or they hire an incompetent consultant who flubs it for them. Here’s how to select a competent consultant.
The long time-frame from application to certificate – even when everything is done right – is fine in “government world” but the private sector does not work like that. Private companies are not unconditionally and perpetually funded by the tax payer. In the private sector there are real consequences for failing to acheive outcomes that matter in the real world.
Given the long time spans the QCTO imposes on the SDP, it is predictable that SDPs load up more courses than they need. QCTO cannot place all the blame on SDPs here again. Private SDPs do this because QCTO turnaround times force them to plan further ahead than what is practical. If you were only able to go grocery shopping once a year your purchases would look wildly different than if it were once a week. Because shopping once a year is extremely impractical and contrary to how grocery planning works in real life.
QCTO could predict, understand, and prevent customer behaviour like this if they took the time to engage with their customer and try to understand them. Maybe even build some rapport and then try guide behaviour.
QCTOs first step must be recognition of the private SDP as their customer in line with the Batho Pele white paper.
I share QCTOs sentiment about uprooting the bad apple training companies, but they cannot achieve this by frustrating and bogging down those SDPs who are trying to do the right thing. In doing this QCTO also paralyses themselves with all kinds of redundant admin they themselves cannot keep up with.
If QCTO does not want SDPs to use consultants, they should improve their customer service. Until then, consider it natural and organic market behaviour that will endure.
Fee amounts need review: There needs to be a smaller fee for SDPs applying for only skills programs. There is no such fee offered, it starts with a qualification being the minimum purchase. This points to the favouritism mentioned throughout this article. The R6000 per training site registration thing also needs heavy review.
Lastly, and most importantly I hope that by “SDP” in their “use of funds” section of the PDF they also mean private SDPs and not just their govt TVETs and FETs. Otherwise no positive change will come from this. It will just be an additional fleecing of the private sector to further favour the govt / public sector.
