Manual back-up keeps Teta’s rebate process functioning

KEVIN MAYHEW
THE TRANSPORT Education and Training Authority (TETA) has been ranked second by the Department of Manpower after an assessment of the performance of all 25 Sector Education and Training Authorities (SETA) in the country.
TETA – which consists of eight chambers that focus on training for the road and rail transport and freight industries – underwent the assessment as part of the government’s programme to measure the effectiveness of the SETA methodology five years after its implementation.
Chief executive officer of TETA, Piet Bothma, concedes that there has been criticism from within the transport industry regarding the capacity of the TETA to meet the expectations of the sector, but he is confident that the organisation is prepared for a successful future.
“The past five years were difficult for every SETA because there was no precedent upon which to base the model anywhere in the world. Every element of TETA’s structure, operation, staffing, accreditation of trainers and good governance had to be established from scratch. We made mistakes but we were forceful enough to push through operational elements that we thought were relevant to our particular sector and the smooth running of what is a vital training platform for the future,” Bothma explained.
Citing examples, he said they had introduced a parallel documentation system that included both an IT arm and a manual operation which effectively mirror each other.
“When we analysed criticism about the slow return of rebates etc for our levy-paying members who were training, it was soon evident that a fair part of the problem lay with technological infrastructure failings or deficiencies. Now every staff member involved in critical processes can manually implement them if there are IT problems of any sort. The mantra now is to “keep the process alive and functioning” and catch up with the technology data capturing later,” he added.
Likewise, they have introduced an interim accreditation system, whereby certain training courses and organisations are partly credited to offer only certain subjects and skills of a complete learnership. In this way, despite accreditation problems for full learnerships, subjects can at least be taken in the interim to enable learners to achieve recognised competency levels.