[Sylvia F. Hammond]

I realise that people become ill, indisposed, or pass on and so sometimes there may be a need to replace someone in a hurry.  But I wonder every time I see a request for an assessor, moderator – or facilitator – required in a hurry.

Now you will notice I don’t use that word that starts with a Ur and ends in t.  That’s because it’s a word that most spam checkers will kick out.  So if you find that your email messages don’t arrive – have a look at the words that you use.

Apart from that – what are the factors that mean that assessors and moderators must be found in a rush – it doesn’t look professional for a training service provider or other company to be so out of control that they need to find numerous people in a hurry.  Why does this happen?  What are the factors in this industry of skills development, education and training that make this necessary – or is it just poor planning and poor management?  Is the skills shortage actually management?

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[Marie Smith]

Good question, Sylvia. I have noticed that the reason for the need or the urgency is also not mentioned. From enquiries I have made it seems that – at least where I have asked – the providers are in urgent need of assessors and moderators for ‘accreditation purposes’. My question is: If a provider does not have at least one assessor for the subject matter expertise field, should they really become an accredited provider? Is that not part of the cause of the shambles that some training programmes are in? Providers trying to tender for projects or to cater for fields that are really out of their comfort zone?

[Sylvia F. Hammond]

That’s very interesting Marie – and it goes some way to explain why we do have members who are assessors telling us that they signed a contract to be an assessor but were never given any work.

One reason for that could be that the TSP wants to become accredited and they offer programmes where the participants can be assessed, but the company sending the participants isn’t interested in having the delegates assessed or paying more money for that service.  So the programme is still offered, people attend but no assessment takes place. 

Employers want to know that the TSP is accredited but aren’t interested in actually having the assessments done.

[Marie Smith]

Sylvia, what you are saying is also true in many cases. Accreditation does give some credibility in the eyes of many employers although not all of them need their staff members to be assessed, especially at the additional costs of assessment and moderation.

[Sylvia F. Hammond]

Yes, but I still find it curious – why is there a rush to find assessors?  Accreditation seems to take months – at least that’s been the complaint against SETA ETQAs according to many of our members.

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