Reflective Essay: SAQA Standards and Qualifications in ETD Program

This reflective essay examines the student's learning experience within a sales training program at Dodo's Matrix, focusing on the application of SAQA (South African Qualifications Authority) standards and the National Qualification Framework (NQF). The essay explores the student's strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats (SWOT) related to the training, particularly regarding the development of unit standards for the sales matrix. It analyzes the role of Critical Cross-Field Outcomes (CCFOs), specifically communication and organization skills, in improving the student's performance and understanding of the training program. The essay further discusses the compliance of the learning process with the NQF and its standards, highlighting the importance of defined learning outcomes, assessment criteria, and unit standards. The student reflects on their ability to utilize theoretical knowledge in practical assessments and concludes by emphasizing the value of reflective practice in identifying areas for improvement in professional development.

Running head: REFLECTIVE ESSAY ON STANDARDS AND QUALIFICATIONS
REFLECTIVE ESSAY ON STANDARDS AND QUALIFICATIONS
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author note

1REFLECTIVE ESSAY ON STANDARDS AND QUALIFICATIONS
Introduction
Reflective practice is an important tool to let people understand their personal behavior,
and their working pattern. This helps to develop and maintain the ability of individuals to accept
their flaws and understand the aspects of their behavior of their working pattern they need to
work on (Dean et al. 2012). In this assignment, I will be discussing the Critical Cross-Field
Outcomes (CCFOs) related to the ETD or education, training and developments in South Africa
according to the guidelines of SAQA or South African Qualifications Authority. Further, I will
be critically discussing the CCFOs that enables me to improve my practices. The two CCFOs
that I will be discussing are communication skill and organization capability.
Reflection of my own practice
While working with the sales trading company Dodo’s Matrix, all the employees had to
be actively involved in a training program to learn the proper to way to operate Dodo’s point of
sales system. The purpose of this system was to make the new employees of the Rampar trading
aware of the rules and regulations of the organizations sales system and create a unit standard so
that the matrix created can be utilized properly. Through this unit standard, the employees will
be trained regarding the process, they will be assessed to understand the achievable outcomes
and specific activities will be allotted to them as per their capabilities.
Strengths: while determining the unit standard, I was very confident that I would be able
to the necessary standards as per the sales matrix easily within the training process, as I was
better than many of them with respect to skills. I was aware that prior knowledge of Card and
RCS payment, cash up, lay-bye sale and refund would help to develop the necessary skills as per
the matrix.

2REFLECTIVE ESSAY ON STANDARDS AND QUALIFICATIONS
Weaknesses: further while developing the unit standard, few sessions that I used to avoid,
as I was not confident enough to undergo training regarding those processes and that process was
the assessment process. I was not properly aware of the assessment criteria and hence was less
confident regarding the process.
Opportunities: While developing the unit matrix I came to know about the assessment
criteria that helped me to develop the unit standard for the organization and the forthcoming
training processes. Therefore, preparing the matrix was an opportunity for me to fulfill my
weakness and utilize my complete knowledge regarding it to create and implement the unit
standard.
Threats: Despite of the fact that I was able to understand my loopholes in understanding
the programs and sales matrix of the learning program, I still have problems while running the
admin portal the payment section, cash count section and customer section is not clear to me.
Therefore, for the assessment criteria and outcome of the unit standard, I need assistance so that I
can learn each nuances of it.
The CCFOs and their role in improving my practices
Critical cross-field outcomes or CCFOs are a set of unit standards defined in the South
African Qualification Authority (SAQA). The South African national authority defines these
outcomesto make the ETD system or the education training and development process clear and
understandable. The two CCFOs I applied in my learning process to improve my flaws were
communication process and my organization skills(South African Qualifications Authority
2018).

3REFLECTIVE ESSAY ON STANDARDS AND QUALIFICATIONS
Communication skills: effective communication helps people to achieve personal success
and sense the accomplishment. This is an important tool for improvement as communication
with peers, trainer or the organization head will led people understand what their shortcomings
or loopholes are while conducting a process (Robles 2012). This will further help the individual
to fulfill those loopholes and become a better and improved individual altogether. While going
through the learning program for the system matrix, I was attentive and behaved positively, as
these values are important to learn any process (Mishra, Boynton and Mishra 2014).
Organization skills: While going through the process, one thing I noticed about myself
that I was able to organize my theoretical as well as practical knowledge to understand in which
section I need help from my trainers. This skill helped me to improve my shortcomings in the
system matrix process (Deming 2017).
Compliance of the learning process with NFQ and its standards
The National Qualification Framework (NQF) is the guidelines that are needed to provide
the philosophical base of an organizational structure. The guidelines are needed in the purpose of
setting a standard within an organization according to the educational qualification of an
individual. The integration of education and training that is highly essential in the context of the
job requirements. The National Qualification framework provides the opportunity of the learners
to deal with the better levels of understanding. As the skill force within the nation is increased it
can help it can help in the process of improving the intellectual capability of the nation. The
chance of the nation to have better capability to establish within the global community that is
achieved with the help of advanced skills. The guidelines of the training also need to have

4REFLECTIVE ESSAY ON STANDARDS AND QUALIFICATIONS
critical outcomes. This will help to ensure that regular changes are made within the training
process (South African Qualifications Authority 2018).
However, the difficult portion of this learning program was the assessment process. The
evaluation was focused on completion of learning outcome therefore the trainers did not focused
on the aspect that we, the trainees are able to utilize the theoretical learning in practical
assessment of not. According to NQF, the trainers developed the process after complying with
the standards of education, qualification, training and development as the curriculum developed
for the training process complied with the qualification, standard and elective unit standards. It
was evident from the facts as the training program had planned learning outcomes;they had their
specific assessment criteria (questionnaires or practical assessment) and the unit standards
depending on the NSB regulations. Therefore, according to my understanding, the training
program was inspired from the SAQA and NQF regulations and followed the elective unit
standards, depending on which it conducted analysis to determine the learning outcomes and
used defined standards for assessment, education training and development (The national
qualifications framework and curriculum development 2018).
Conclusion
Reflection practice is a strategy used by learners and trainers worldwide to understand
their pattern of work, pattern of mistakes and the scope of improvement in the process. In this
assignment, I reflected on the raining program, in which I took part while working in the Rampar
sales matrix. The training was to acquire the detailed knowledge of the sales process and its
admin customer and organizational aspects. While going through the training I understood my
strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats of learning. Further, the critical cross-field

5REFLECTIVE ESSAY ON STANDARDS AND QUALIFICATIONS
outcomes such as communication and organization skills that helped me to overcome the
weakness and threats and acquire the through details of the process.

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References
Dean, B. Amelia., Sykes, C., Agostinho, S. and Clements, M. 2012. Reflective assessment in
work-integrated learning: to structure or not to structure, that was our question. Asia-Pacific
Journal of Cooperative Education, 13 (2), pp.103-113.
Deming, D.J., 2017. The growing importance of social skills in the labor market. The Quarterly
Journal of Economics, 132(4), pp.1593-1640.
Mishra, K., Boynton, L. and Mishra, A., 2014. Driving employee engagement: The expanded
role of internal communications. International Journal of Business Communication, 51(2),
pp.183-202.
Robles, M.M., 2012. Executive perceptions of the top 10 soft skills needed in today’s workplace.
Business Communication Quarterly, 75(4), pp.453-465.
South African Qualifications Authority 2018. South African Qualifications Authority. [online]
Saqa.org.za. Available at: http://www.saqa.org.za/list.php?e=NQF
The national qualifications framework and curriculum development2017, The National
Qualifications Framework and Curriculum Development, viewed 3 February 2018,
from http://www.saqa.org.za/docs/pol/2000/curriculum_dev.pdf.