Concerns have been raised regarding funding for the training of freight forwarders as funds allocated by the Sector Education and Training Authority (Seta) to the Transport Education Training Authority (Teta) are now focused on NQF level 5 and above. Metro Minds CEO Juliette Fourie told FTW that this was a worry as freight forwarding industry qualifications currently stood at level 3. “There are a lot of question marks around this as freight forwarding businesses still have a need for funding but will not necessarily receive what they did in the past,” she said. Teta head of marketing and media liaison, Sabelo Mbuku, told FTW that this exclusion was based on the demands of the industry and skills shortfalls in the industry as well as what Teta was able to fund. “We look at the strategy focus of the entire transport sector and align funding to this strategy so that it fits into the larger spectrum of industry need,” he said. Fourie suggested that the reason for the reallocation of funding to other projects in different transport chambers was the low number of people making use of the grants. “Only about 18% of Transport Seta levy payers are utilising the Seta grants and claiming the process to their advantage,” she added. However, according to Mbuku, there is more than enough uptake when Teta advertises the discretionary grant windows, with the authority receiving “quite a lot” of applications from all subsectors in the transport chamber. South African Association of Freight Forwarders’ (Saaff) Training, Development and B-BBEE consultant, Tony D’Almeida, told FTW that Teta was allocating more funding to level 5 qualifications because it had been allocating funds at level 3 for the last decade and wanted to see a progression of skills. “Saaff in conjunction with the Quality Council for Trades and Occupations intends to scope out and contemporise qualifications at the NQF level 3 and widen the learning to include international logistics.”
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Teta is allocating more funding to level 5 qualifications because it wants to see a progression of skills. – Tony D’Almeida
