SETA Accreditions / Learnerships

The purpose of SETA accreditation is to make sure that education and training is of a high standard and quality and that it is relevant to the needs of the industry sector in question. If a training provider has SETA accreditation, it means that the training provider’s courses comply with the NQF standards, and that the courses offered have been evaluated to ensure that they are in line with these standards. SETA accreditation also aims to ensure that there is uniformity of similar courses offered by different training providers. SETA accreditation therefore provides the assurance that a training provider will be capable of providing relevant training and education that is in line with national standards. Another purpose of SETA accreditation is to ensure that the courses being offered by accredited training providers are relevant to industry needs and will equip students with the skills that they will need in the workplace.

The Services Sector Education and Training Authority (or Services SETA as it is more commonly referred to) was originally established in 2000 to ensure that the skills needs of the services sector would be identified and correctly addressed. The Services SETA committed to achieve this task by forming partnerships with various stakeholders and role-players and by implementing a focused business plan.

Ten years down the line, the Services SETA is still operating, but will change a little bit when the new SETA landscape comes into being in South Africa in March 2011.

The Banking Sector Education and Training Authority (BANKSETA) is an enabler of skills development and transformation in the broader banking & microfinance sector and supports people development through partnerships, skills development, alleviating unemployment, creating a brighter future and enabling change. BANKSETA focuses on SMEs, the youth, adult education, continuous professional development and research. Skills development has been identified as a key requirement for economic growth in South Africa, as a result, the Skills Development Act provides a framework for the development of skills in the workplace.

The Culture, Art, Tourism, Hospitality, and Sport Sector Education and Training Authority (CATHSSETA) is one of the 21 SETAs established under the Skills Development Act (No 97 of 1998) in 2001.CATHSSETA was formally known as the Tourism and Hospitality Education and Training Authority (THETA) until 1 April 2012, when we became the Culture, Art, Tourism, Hospitality and Sport Sector Education and Training Authority.

Their mandate is to facilitate skills development within their sub-sectors through the disbursement of grants for learning programmes and monitoring of education and training as outlined in the National Skills Development Strategy (NSDS).

The merSETA like all other SETAs play a central role in making sure that the National Skills Development Strategy (NSDS) is fulfilled. The merSETA does not collect levies but instead receives collected levies from the Department of Higher Education and Training. Seventy percent of the levies are disbursed as grants and 10% is kept for administration. The merSETA does not train -- instead it facilitates the process of training by paying grants, registering moderators and assessors, identifying scarce skills, accrediting providers, monitoring the quality of training and implementing projects to close the skills gap.

The Media, Information and Communication Technologies Sector Education and Training Authority (MICT SETA) is a skills development institution established in terms of the Skills Development Act of 1998, to generate, facilitate and accelerate the processes of quality skills development at all levels in the MICT sector in South Africa. The MICT sector is made up of five subsectors that are interconnected but also quite distinct and identifiable in their own right. These are: advertising, film and electronic media, electronics, information technology and telecommunications.

The MICT SETA intends to engage in learning programmes and quality assurance of education and training of implemented learning initiatives, which lead to employment and new venture creation, while at the same time engaging in programmes that assist in bridging the digital divide, especially in rural areas.

The mission of the Transport Education Training Authority (TETA) is to provide an innovative Quality Assurance and Skills Development Framework in a cost-effective manner to exceed stakeholder/government Service Level Agreement (SLA) and requirements.

The functions of TETA are the: development of a Sector Skills Plan (SSP) for the transport sector; implementation of the SSP through learnership implementation, approval of workplace skills plans, allocation of levy grants, and monitoring of Education, Training and Development (ETD) activities in the transport sector; quality assurance of ETD interventions; and disbursement of levy grants.

The mission of the Wholesale and Retail Sector Education and Training Authority (W&RSETA) is to develop a skilled, capable, competent and professional workforce to transform the wholesale and retail sector.

W&RSETA's strategic goals are to: create a culture of lifelong and workplace learning; address historic imbalances, with a focus on class, race, gender, geographical locations and disability, in the development of people in the W&R sector; facilitate funded and accessible training to meet sector needs; and align with national development strategies in line with the requirements of government to foster skills development in the W&R sector for productivity and employment.

The Insurance Sector Education and Training Authority's (INSETA) primary purpose is grow the pool and quality of critical and scarce skills within the insurance sector.