The technician training
programme has 3 basic levels:
foundational, intermediate,
and advanced.
B
arloworld Equipment is celebrating a landmark year this year:
90 years since it first partnered with the Caterpillar earthmoving
machinery manufacturing company, putting both companies on
the map in South Africa. Much of the company’s success over the
past nine decades has been based on its strong commitment to skills
development, both of its own staff and of its customers.
Among the company’s many achievements over the past
nine decades is one that Lynette Mentor, head of Barloworld
Equipment’s Learning Academy, is particularly proud of.
“Barloworld Equipment was the first South African earthmoving
equipment company to receive accreditation from the
Construction Education and Training Authority (CETA) for
our operator training,” says Mentor. “We received the CETA
accreditation in June 2007, exactly a decade ago, and we are
registered as a programme approved training provider with the
Mining Qualifications Authority (MQA) for the 18-credit Skills
Programme: Operate Mobile Machinery for Surface Excavation
Operations (MQA/SP/0148/13).”
Barloworld Equipment is also an accredited training provider
for the National Certificate: Construction Plant Operations (ID:
65789), a 120-credit, SAQA-accredited National Qualifications
Framework (NQF) level 2 course that covers areas including health
and safety, plant operations in the construction environment, and
plant operation personnel procedures, among others.
“From January 2015 until the end of June this year, we certified
a total of 617 people on operating construction equipment —
over 200 of them outside of South Africa — and 584 people on
operating mining equipment,” says Mentor.
She explains that while the company’s various training units used
to operate independently, as part of its transformation Barloworld
Equipment has focused on bringing the entire Learning Academy
together under one roof. Now, the Isando-based facility houses all
the company’s training and education offerings, including a variety
of skills programmes and part qualifications, and trains almost
1 000 people each month across all the learning functions.
Operator training
Unlike the Plant Operations qualification, the operator training
offered by Barloworld Equipment is a skills programme or
part qualification, worth roughly 30 credits, depending on the
customer’s requirements. “Larger customers tend to also have
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