Dear Portfolio Committee on Higher Education, Science and Technology,

The skills development scene is changing with the phasing out of the historical SETA based qualifications; these are replaced by Occupational Certificates, quality assured by the QCTO. All applications for accreditation for a full qualification must now be submitted via the QCTO's online system. Once completed one receives an undated standard reply that does not indicate the name of the applicant or the qualifications he has applied for. In this standard reply the QCTO indicates that one will receive correspondence indicating the next steps - the current document reads 'up to three weeks, due to the high volume'.

On enquiring I received a reply that the accreditation period is 90 days, however in practice this never happens; I submiited an application late in 2019 and was then informed recently that the scheduled verification site visit would take place on 2021-03-06 or nearly 15 months after the initial submission.

The QCTO has introduced a 'no personal visit, no phone call' policy due to the COVID 19 state. Apparently they are all 'working from home' and trying to reach anybody by phone is pointless; sendijng an email is a waste of time as it seems to be that they have a policy that no emails will be responded to.

With the recent relaxation the Skills Development industry is trying to re-open but they may not offer any teaching or learning unless accredited by the QCTO! There seems to be a massive backlog in dealing with applications for accreditation - however the QCTO does not make provision for tracking as the generic reply is not dated, has no reference number or indication of who the applicant is.

The very first line on the QCTO's website warns prospective students about SDP's who are not accredited - however in the real world the QCTO does not process applications in time causing SDP's to resort to unaccredited training while waiting for the QCTO to eventualy process the application.

Enquiries to the QCTO are met by total and complete silence.

Is it possible to get statistics from the QCTO as to the number of applications received, processed and in-process within say the last year?