About the Skills Programme

The Skills Programme: Skills Development Facilitation Practitioner (SP-220321) is a QCTO-aligned programme that prepares learners to perform the skills development facilitation function in a workplace. At NQF Level 5 and 40 credits over 51 days, it responds directly to South Africa's demand for SDFs who can produce a Workplace Skills Plan that survives scrutiny and secure the mandatory grant that depends on it.

The programme integrates statutory knowledge with applied workplace practice across the full skills development cycle — from the NQF, SAQA and the occupational qualifications framework, through the levy-grant system and national skills priorities, to needs analysis, consultation, planning, sourcing providers, monitoring delivery and reporting. On completion, learners are able to explain and apply the statutory framework governing skills development, analyse learning and development needs against an employment profile, compile a Workplace Skills Plan and Annual Training Report, evaluate and select accredited providers, monitor implementation against agreed terms, and conduct the processes on which mandatory grant payments depend.

Purpose

The purpose of this skills programme is to enable a learner to perform the skills development facilitation function in a workplace: to understand and apply the statutory framework, to analyse learning and development needs, to plan, source, monitor, evaluate and report on workplace learning, and to conduct the processes required for mandatory grant payments.

The role has a formal statutory basis and an informal operational reality. Formally, the SDF is the person an employer appoints to develop and submit the WSP and ATR, and to act as the contact point between the employer and the SETA. Operationally, the role is wider and considerably less tidy: the SDF is the person who has to tell a manager that the course they want is not accredited, tell a director that the grant was lost because a signature was missing, sit in a consultation meeting where organised labour does not trust the process, and produce a defensible plan from data nobody has maintained. The legislation is the easy part.

Who Should Enrol?

This programme is designed for people appointed as SDFs, as well as those carrying the function informally without formal training. It is well suited to:

• Appointed skills development facilitators, whether new or already submitting.
• HR and training practitioners who compile the WSP and ATR as part of a wider role.
• Training coordinators, learning and development officers and academy staff.
• Employment equity and transformation officers whose reporting overlaps with the WSP.
• Consultants and small business owners serving multiple employers as an SDF, and organisations wanting the grant claimed properly rather than late.

Entry Requirements

Learners must be competent at NQF Level 4, or demonstrate equivalent competence. Because the workplace module requires learners to compile a Workplace Skills Plan for a real employer, learners must have — or be able to obtain — access to an employer for whom that plan can be compiled. Recognition of Prior Learning is available in accordance with the QCTO RPL Policy. Learners have the right to appeal any assessment decision, lodged in writing with the Tonex Quality Assurance Officer within ten working days; an assessor not involved in the original decision reviews the evidence, the outcome is given within fifteen working days, and appealing costs nothing and carries no prejudice.

Career Opportunities

Graduates of this programme are equipped for roles carrying skills development accountability. Outcomes include:

• Appointed skills development facilitator.
• Training or learning and development coordinator or officer.
• HR practitioner with skills development and reporting responsibility.
• Employment equity or transformation officer.
• Independent SDF consultant serving multiple employers, or progression toward HR and L&D roles at NQF 6.