The Skills Development Act is Act of Parliament that aims to expand the knowledge and competencies of the labour force in order to improve productivity and employment so as to improve the quality of life of workers, their prospects of work and labour mobility.

To provide an institutional framework to devise and implement national, sector and workplace strategies to develop and improve the skills of the workforce, and to integrate those strategies within the National Qualifications Framework contemplated in the South African Qualifications Authority Act, 1995.

The South African Qualifications Authority (SAQA) is a legal entity that consists of professionals from the business, labour, education and training sectors, that is responsible for establishing and maintaining quality within the higher education and training sector. The primary purpose of SAQA is to ensure the implementation of the National Qualifications Framework (NQF).

In this way SAQA ensures that individual qualifications meet the requirements established by the Department of higher education and training and the relevant industry.

The National Qualifications Framework (NQF) is the system that records the credits assigned to each level of learning achievement in a formal way to ensure that the skills and knowledge that have been learnt are recognised throughout the country. It is a comprehensive system for the classification, registration, publication and articulation of quality-assured national qualifications.

The main objectives of the NQF are to create a single integrated national framework for learning achievements, and to facilitate access to, mobility and progression within education, training and career paths as well as to accelerate the redress of past unfair discrimination in education, training and employment opportunities.

The National Skills Development Strategy (NSDS) is the government’s strategy to increase access to high quality and relevant education and training and skills development opportunities, including workplace learning and experience, to enable effective participation in the economy and society by all South Africans and reduce inequalities.

A Skills Programme is an occupation-based learning programme aimed at building skills that have economic value, and which incorporates at least one unit standard or a combination of unit standards which are assessed against criteria to prove competence. A Skills Programme is generally a short training programme.  Skills Programmes are registered by SETAs and credits are accumulated and can be used, on achievement, as building blocks towards a full qualification registered on the National Qualifications Framework (NQF).

A learnership is a work based learning programme that leads to an NQF registered qualification. A learnerships is directly related to an occupation or field of work and is managed by a Sector Education and Training Authorities (SETA). Learnerships are a way to provide people with work experience as well as recognised qualifications that were introduced by government to help skill learners and to prepare them for the workplace.

It basically is a structured learning programme during which the learner spends some time learning theory and some time learning practical skills in the workplace directly related to an occupation or field of work, The duration of a learnership programme is generally between 12 to 18 months.

An apprenticeships combines theory, practical work and workplace practice in a chosen trade field, and in the case of a listed trade ends in a trade test and an artisan certificate of competence. An apprenticeship programme is an occupational training programme that combines on-the-job work experience with technical and/or classroom study.

Apprenticeships are generally limited to technical trades as they are aimed at developing trade-specific skills, and learners are required to work out a fixed period of time before they can receive their qualification. The duration of an apprenticeship programme is generally between 2 to 4 years.

Recognition of Prior Learning (RPL) is the identification, assessment and acknowledgement of the full range of an individual’s skills, competencies, knowledge and work ethos obtained through informal training, certificated learning, non-accredited courses, workshops, on-the-job experience and life experience. The learning and experience is compared against the learning outcomes required for a specific qualification.

RPL is an excellent way to get an individual’s expertise accredited. Simply put, RPL helps learners gain credits by assessing the knowledge and experience they already have. This allows experienced workers to obtain a qualification in a shorter space of time.