The skills supermarket that's virtually everywhere

Content is updated several times a day and features contributions from providers, SETA CEOs, government officials, academics and representatives of professional bodies, as well as interviews done by specialist journalists.

“Unlike SETA websites that provide basic information for their sectors, the Skills Portal (available at www.skillsportal.co.za) provides independent news, profiles and discussion forums,” says Hammond. “The publication has always supported skills development, training, provider accreditation and the SETAs but it certainly doesn't treat them as holy cows that can't be challenged.”

Seeds sown

The seeds of the Skills Portal were sown shortly after the worldwide dot.com bust at the turn of the century.

“After I left the news service, I became a human resources consultant and skills development facilitator.

“I later got the idea of combining my work as an SDF with my previous experience as a website editor and started the Skills Portal as a dedicated publication promoting skills development, training and human resources development.”

Hammond says the Skills Portal has some 16 000 subscribers to its free weekly email newsletter.

There are an estimated 10 000 training companies operating in South Africa. However, add to this the number of consultant skills development facilitators, assessors and moderators, there could be over 20 000 “companies” working in the field of skills development and training.

“The vast majority of these are very small – in many cases, one-person enterprises or, in the vernacular, ‘suitcase providers'.”

‘Suitcase provider'

“The traditional view is that a ‘suitcase provider' is a bad thing because it implies someone who is a fly-by-night. Usually, though, they are people who have worked in a profession for many years and provide training through mentoring and coaching,” he says.

Most companies are happy to use these providers for short-term or “informal” training that is not aligned to the National Qualifications Framework.

“We have an economy where there is a shortage of skills. Even when people possess relevant qualifications, in the first few years of their careers they lack experience and there is thus an enormous role for people who have already cut their teeth in business to play.

“Not only can these people plough back a huge amount of expertise into the business world, for the most part they are desperately keen to do so.

“For instance, if an employer has a team of six salespeople who need some sort of intervention that will make them more effective, he or she would most likely turn to someone who was a successful manager before opening a specialist training company. This is the kind of person who might add great value to a company even though the salespeople will not have recognised qualifications at the end of the training intervention.”

Blessing and curse

The blessing – and, just as often, the curse – of there being such a great number of training providers is that those wanting to send employees of skills programmes is finding the right one.

The Skills Portal is a virtual supermarket where employers can draw comparisons between companies providing similar training; determine whether they are accredited and the prices they charge.

“There is no other place in South Africa where you can find almost up-to-the-minute information on these companies.”

In other countries, online publishing is viewed on a par with newspapers and other “mainstream” media such as radio and television. It's not quite the same in South Africa because of problems pertaining to bandwidth and access to the Internet.

However, online publishing is growing very quickly because the advantages are clear in terms of disseminating information quickly and cost-effectively. Another advantage is that it can harness the possibilities of multimedia and the Skills Portal has begun to use downloadable video clips on the website.

“What we have done on the Skills Portal is to use video clips as an information tool to profile the training companies as well as to provide information. For example, you can go onto the site and download video clip that will explain, for example, what it is that an assessor does or what is the National Qualifications Framework,” adds Hammond.

The Skills Portal can be found at www.skillsportal.co.za.