Participants of various programmes hosted by Sea Harvest have raised their concerns about the future.
According to one participant they were promised certificates upon completion of the programme last year as well as stipends, but this was not received yet.
A participant told Weslander that not receiving certificates has affected many badly. “There are vacancies that require certification and we are unable to provide it. That is a big loss, because its impossible to get hired. Some of us have been rejected by other learnerships. In terms of stipends we must receive it because during the training we had to make our own way to the training centre, paying for our own transport.”
Anthea Abraham, Sea Harvest Group Corporate Affairs Manager, said Sea Harvest hosted Hazard analysis and critical control points (HACCP/Food Safety) training for 270 learners, which was concluded in February. The relevant Sector, Education and Training Authority (SETA) completed its verification process at the end of March.
“Furthermore, Safety, Health and Environment Representative (SHE-Rep) classroom training was hosted for 91 learners, which was concluded in October. However, learners had to complete their portfolio of evidence (POE). Remedial sessions were also conducted with the SHE-Rep learners and were only concluded in April,” said Abraham.
She added that learner certification of the accredited training programmes are managed and vetted by the SETAs, and Sea Harvest does not have any control over the duration of the certification process. “Notwithstanding this, we proactively engaged with SETAs to expedite the process as we understand that it increases the learners employability. As a consequence of our efforts, we are now able to issue learner stipends and certificates this coming week. We regret any inconvenience that the delay in issuing certificates and stipends have caused the affected learners.”
Participants made their way to Sea Harvest on Tuesday 21 May and said they were told that everything will be sorted out by the end of the week.
“Now we wait and look forward to see what will happen by the end of the week,” said one student.
