A number of training and recruitment challenges – including the way black economic empowerment (BEE) points are allocated – have contributed to the dearth of skills in the freight and logistics sector, putting service levels under increasing pressure. Mark Goodger MD of Global Maritime Legal Solutions (GMLS), told FTW that one of the biggest challenges was the fact that global freight forwarders could earn BEE points on learnerships. He believes this helps the larger, multinational freight forwarding companies meet their BEE quota requirements so they are keen to offer learnerships through the Transport Education and Training Authority (Teta) grants. “Unfortunately, the global forwarders are running lean and mean operations which means that retention of learners within the organisation is increasingly less likely,” Goodger explained. The local, smaller companies – especially the small and medium enterprises (SMEs) – are unable to source those grants due to the red tape involved in accessing them, so the picture is rather bleak,” he pointed out. New entrants to the market do have the opportunity to obtain some formal education but the national qualification framework (NQF) levels – particularly the older NQF 3 and NQF4 – are not “reconcilable to the professional competency of the industry”. Teta reportedly said it was reluctant to fund these qualifications which Goodger expects will be phased out. “After GMLS wrote the Supply Chain course material for the NQF 5 qualification, Teta contracted us to write two new NQF 5 qualifications respectively called ‘The Freight Forwarder’ and ‘The Supply Chain Practitioner’,” he said. These focused significantly on workplace training. “Forwarders will therefore need to partner with excellent training providers to take them through to the new Quality Council for Trades and Applications (QCTO) framework.” He added that this would also lead to outside assessments being conducted by Teta’s Education and Training Quality Assurance which should ferret out training providers that were lagging behind in the provision of up-to-date skills
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Smaller companies are unable to source Teta grants. – Mark Goodger
