NQA battles forged qualifications

Not many people understand what the National Qualifications Authority (NQA) does, but it plays a critical role in ensuring quality education by battling bogus institutions that offer unaccredited courses. The NQA also ensures that Namibians are properly skilled and qualified so they can enter the job market with confidence, and that educational qualifications are not forged by unscrupulous individuals. This is according to the NQA Chief Executive Officer Franz Gertze, who spoke extensively to Namibian Sun recently about the role the NQA plays in society. He said his dream is that no Namibian should ever have to go through enrolling at an institution where the so-called qualifications mean nothing in terms of finding a job. “It saddens me every single time a person registers at these bogus institutions and waste not just their money, but also their time when they end up with a useless qualification,” Gertze said. “People should know that they can always contact the NQA and enquire about institutions before they register. Our staff usually gives feedback within 48 hours after a person has sent in their query.” He said bogus institutions are really a serious problem, especially since only a certain sector of the country can afford to send their children to educational institutions of their choice, anywhere in the world. Forging qualifications According to him, people can be very innovative when forging qualifications and the NQA therefore also has to be innovative in finding and catching such people. “We are a member of international systems where we can get information about culprits and we also have access to global networks, but we need our own national learner recording database to capture people with skills. This is a very important and useful tool used across the globe, which is also costly but hopefully we will acquire it soon,” he said. He said the NQA only wants the best for the country and said the organisation wants Namibia to be a prosperous and competitive nation. This can only happen when people have the right skills in greater numbers, but this is not necessarily the case at the moment. Gertze said this can only happen once Vision 2030 becomes a reality. Successes He said he was proud to say that the number of unscrupulous education providers had significantly decreased, while the number of qualifications being evaluated has increased. Gertze said the NQA is growing and has become a strong parastatal in its own right. “We have set firm standards for occupations and we have grown significantly in terms of output and impact, and the country has more people with quality assured qualifications. Ensuring quality means additional work, and some people don’t want to work hard for that, but they have also realised how important a quality qualification is,” he said. According to Gertze, the NQA framework is operational and the country has been rated amongst the top three qualifications authorities in Africa. “The NQA has an exciting future and we are committed to celebrating and ensuring quality. I want every Namibian who has a qualification to respect themselves and that qualification, and know they worked hard for it,” said Gertze, adding that the NQA wants to deliver on the promise of empowering Namibians through quality education. “We have to provide necessary skills and support to providers, so that we are on par with regards to expectations, but people need to insist on quality,” he said. The NQA is internationally recognised and any Namibian who studies locally at an accredited institution is able to confidently apply for a job anywhere in the world. The NQA’s mandate is to exercise and perform statutory powers, duties and functions in line with the Namibian Qualifications Authority Act of 1996. These duties include setting up and administering a national qualifications framework, setting up occupational standards for any occupation, job, post or position in any career structure, as well as setting the curriculum standards required for achieving the occupational standards for any given occupation. The NQA also accredits persons, institutions and organisations, providing education and courses of instruction or training of meeting certain requirements as set out in Section 13 of the Act. It is also responsible for evaluating and recognising competencies learned outside formal education, as well as inquiring into whether any particular qualification meets the national standards. There are 36 NQA credited institutions in the country.