Saasoa secures funding for ‘Adopt a learner’ project

After six years of hard work by the council of the SA Association of Ship Operators and Agents (Saasoa), it has taken a big step forward in its creation of the Adopt a Learner Project – a first of its kind in SA. The latest news is that Saasoa has been successful in securing significant funding for its members to participate in the programme – the main purposes of which are to address the critical shortage of skills within the shipping industry; improve the industry’s visibility; and encourage more entrants to join. The association council has made every effort to encourage the industry players to participate in the skills development process (SDP). This included arranging funding from the Transport Education and Training Authority (Teta) for the writing of industry generic job descriptions and the unit standards and curriculum – which has been registered as a learnership under the SA Qualifications Authority (SAQA) ID number 49155. The foundation step was to appoint an accredited training provider – which met the Teta/department of labour criteria. To fast-track the process, the Institute of Chartered Shipbrokers (ICS) and The Institute for Quality (IQ-Tek) – which are separately accredited for part of the qualification – were brought together. The two organisations have signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) to collectively act as the accredited training provider – allowing Saasoa to apply for funding in the form of a discretionary grant from Teta. And this has now been approved for 20 learners on the FET Level 4 shipping certificate qualification, with Saasoa members and registered Teta stakeholders invited to participate in the Adopt a Learner project. The funding will cover the cost of the training facilitators and learner allowances for the contract period of 12 months. Learners will attend structured classroom theory training for approximately five months, and then be deployed into their adoptive companies to gain practical work experience for the balance of the 12 months. At the end of this period, the companies can decide whether the learner will be employed on a permanent basis, or released to a central skills pool for the other member companies to draw from.