Responsible Refrigeration
BARNEY RICHARDSON
Barney Richardson is the director of South African Refrigeration and Air
Conditioning Contractors Association (SARACCA) and sits on various other
boards within the HVAC industry, including the South African Qualifications
and Certifications Committee for Gas (SAQCC) Gas.
AVENUES TO
ADDRESSING SKILLS SHORTAGE
By Barney Richardson
Recently there have been discussions and planning by the DHET to
increase the capacity of the so-called TVET Colleges to address the
skills shortage.
T
he intention is to cover a wide spectrum of work trades.
With regard to refrigeration and air conditioning there
are serious challenges to achieving quality training from
these colleges. All colleges, except for one in Cape Town, are
under-resourced in terms of suitable cold room equipment for
training and the tools necessary to facilitate comprehensive
training up to and including a trade test in terms of the new
curriculum. The initiative from the Department of Higher
Education and Training (DHET) aims at creating ‘centres of
specialisation’ within the TVET colleges.
There are two main objectives in the centres of specialisation:
1. To address the needs and demands of priority trades for
the government’s National Development and National
Infrastructure Plan.
2. To build capacity of public TVET colleges to deliver trade
qualifications with industry and employers as partners.
The plan is to follow up on implementation of a new Quality
Council for Trades and Occupations (QCTO) – trades that are
based on the National Occupational Curriculum. The refrigeration
and air conditioning trades will hopefully form part of this. The
intention is to employ facilitators who are suitably trained in
the fast-changing technology of the industry. This is where the
bottleneck will be, finding qualified and experienced trainers or
facilitators to teach the refrigeration subjects. Employers in the
refrigeration and air conditioning industry must step up support
for the plan and employ apprentices in these trades.
The Department is indicating several advantages to employers
which should be grabbed at with both hands.
• There is a generous grant of R165 000 per apprentice from
the SETA,
• Qualifying employers will have tax rebates available,
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RACA Journal I February 2020
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It is a route for interested students to acquire the necessary
skills and future employment,
It creates competitiveness in the workforce for top skills,
Companies would be in partnership with the colleges
through their recruited apprentices.
The DHET and Sector Education and Training Authorities
(SETAs) would treat this as a special project to meet service-level
agreements. The aim is to have quality apprentices and qualified
artisans. The target is to recruit an additional 840 apprentices
across the board in 2020.
SARACCA participation in this training will be an extension of
the training support that has been in place for many years. The
training will also be a pipeline to registration with SAQCCGAS as
Authorised Refrigeration Gas Practitioners.
There are several initiatives in the planning to enhance
qualification and skills in refrigeration and air conditioning. These
extend from the training of informal sector installers and repairers
to the apprentice training programme. There is also the training
initiative supported by the Bavarian State Government for skills
in hydrocarbon refrigerants. This is an important part of new skills
training as the world increasingly moves to using refrigerant gases
that are flammable in the safety groups of A3, A2, and A2L.
It is important that all these training plans are geared
toward the South African goal of improved skills and follow
the new curriculum in refrigeration and air conditioning trades.
It will unfortunately be easy to follow different skills training
programmes that are not aligned to the curriculum. It would
be a disaster if the trainee is left with a certificate of training
that cannot be recognised by the government departments.
Registration with SAQCCGas could be adversely affected if that
a registration category cannot be properly allocated. RACA
www.hvacronline.co.za