21/01/2024
CLARITY OUTSTANDING REFUNDS & CERTIFICATE ISSUES
1. Outstanding Refunds
Good Day All
We would like to make an acknowledgement to the fact that:
1. We do have registered students whom we still owe refunds - However we do have a refund process that needs to be followed in order to refund them. There is a form that needs to be completed and submit proof of payment and proof of banking and also need to be on our systems.
2. If registered students can't satisfy those stipulated processes unfortunately we cant process the refund as each an every business has its policies and process that need to be respected.
3. We have a backlog and we are processing those refunds as and when excess funds becomes available. We have 3 programmes that we cancelled and 1 Certificate Ceremony that we couldnt stage in Kuruman, and we have refunded some people who submitted the requested documents. The refund process is taking longer than we anticipated and we have set a new deadline to May 2024 as we are left with 40% of the 68 refunds that are remaining. The business will only start its Operations in Mid March and we have given ourselves 2 months to complete the refunds.
So we have people posting on Facebook deforming our Institution's name because they either don't want to follow due process or they never completed the programme successfully and use Facebook to tarnish our name.
Unfortunately we can't engage every post on social media as we encourage students whom we need to refund (legitimately) to use our Centre WhatsApp Number to engage us and submit the required documents so that they can be assisted. As we will verify all claims submitted.
2. Certificate issues.
At Karabo Training Academy we run various training programmes and people need to understand that within the Skills Development Sector we have the following trainings options:
1. Accredited Courses:
These are SETA aligned courses where a student will have to complete 2 types of assessment being Formative Assessment + Summative Assessment. This assessment are set to assess the learner competency and are aligned to SETA Credits and once you have attained credits, the said SETa (in our case is Services Seta will issue a statement of results).
These courses can delivered from 3 days to 12 months. These courses are often expensive ( example 3 days course can range from R1500,00 upwards).
Students get uploaded on the SETA National Learner Records Database (NLRD) and SETAs will allocate a special Student Number that can be used to verify the Credits and Results or Certificate.
2. Provider Non Accredited Courses:
These are non credit bearing programmes and are used as skills transfer courses that enable to empower and accommodate people who didnt complete matric or can't afford Higher Education and Training (HET) or Accredited Courses. Providers can develop their own content or adopt already available content and can assess and issue certificates to students without allocating credits to them.
Many companies do acknowledge the Non Accredited courses as part of the Work Readiness Skills Programme to get the said candidates work ready and they are aware that the said students and results ( certificate) will not be on the SETA database.
However, the certificate and Competency Statement of Results or Testimonial are legitimate (as long as they are issued by a registered and accredited service provider like.us).
So you will have people who have no knowledge of how the skills development community works and will come with claims and accusations that our certificates are not legit.
3. Closure
Many people when they see a SETA logo will assume that they doing an accredited course and some will assume that they doing a qualification ( you can't obtain a qualification in just 2 weeks or 3 months - that is a short course or skills programme).
When they apply for jobs they will write or say they did a SETA Accredited Qualification and Companies will verify and log onto the NLRD database to check the legitimacy of your Qualification Claim.
Hence, all our Non Accredited Course Certificate at the bottom will be written Non Accredited Course. So that we minimize this confusion. We started doing this from mid 2023.
So, you will have people calling us a scam because some people assume that when they register for any of our programmes be it centre based, Distance Learning or Outreach Training, they just attend and they will get a certificate. Unfortunately we do have Assessment Workbook or Practical Assessment for us to assess and satisfy your level.of competency before you can receive our certificate. For Accredited Courses you will have to submit both Formative and Summative Assessment with all supporting evidence .
We have been in existence since 2016, and in our journey we have given many people an opportunity to get jobs and YES, we have hit some speed humps where due poor administration and management we fell short in meeting our students expectations like cancelling certain classes and also taking long in making those refunds but we have learned from our flaws and we have been working hard in improving on those departments.
We are an Institution that was established to give a Black Child an opportunity to get the right skills to either start a new career or start their own hustle.
Not to shift the blame,we are aware of people who will make noise about us being a scam because they never completed the programme successfully and will get jealous when they see our posts or when other people are graduating. We will not refuse to refund you when your claim is legitimate, we have Terms and Conditions and are accessible on our website and many people don't read them and when we apply them they complain and start to make noise and unfortunately with social Media you will have unaudited comments.
Finally, to those whom we owe REFUNDS, please be patient with us and we will refund the remain 68 students as soon as we have excess funds and we apologize for this long delays.
NB: Please note that Ñew Qualifications have been running since. June 2023 and are offered through the QCTO and are called Occupational Qualifications and Certificates of Competency will be issued through them. SETA legacy qualifications will phase out by 2025 but Institutions like ours will no longer be registering students for any courses under legacy qualifications after June 2024.
Remember: Karabo Training Academy has now closed all their. Centres and effective from 2024 we are an Online & Distance Learning Training Academy and we will be hosting Special Outreach and Training Camps.
We will be operating an Admin Office where all enquiries and submissions can be directed to us via WhatsApp and submission via courier.
Thank you to everyone who have supported us through out all these year despite the negative narrative been shared on various facebook groups.
We really appreciate you all.
Regards,
Karabo Training Academy
