Recognition of Prior Learning (RPL) Guidelines

GENERAL INFORMATION ON RECOGNITION OF PRIOR LEARNING (RPL)

IMPORTANT: All RPL candidates must attend an RPL workshop. RPL workshops are scheduled in each region and dates are logged in the eta academic calendar; contact any eta campus manager for more details.

eta Region Name Surname Tel Office Mobile E-mail address
Cape Town Paul Laemmle 021-671 1060 082 492 3918 paul@etasa.co.za
Distance Learning Charmaine Kosmas 021-674 7512 082 574 3375 distancelearning@etasa.co.za
Durban Wessel Dippenaar 031 701 8921 082 578 7880 wessel@etasa.co.za
Johannesburg William Mbanga 011 807 2079 072 211 0681 wil@etasa.co.za
Pretoria Marius Ferreira 012 342 5186 082 410 2236 marius@etasa.co.za
Stellenbosch Jaco Van Rensburg 021-886 7513 076 730 4039 jaco@etasa.co.za
RPL candidates will fall in to three main categories:

CATEGORY 1:
Candidates wishing to enter learning programmes; these candidates have done some prior learning that is relevant and can be recognized. They may wish to be exempt from modules that they have already completed. This type of candidate needs to attend remaining modules to complete their learning. In this instance, they would be exempt from learning certain sections and would pay the relevant fee, which exempts them from modules that they have already learned. In this instance, the candidate completes the modules required, pays the relevant course fee with modules exempted but is still assessed against the whole qualification.

CATEGORY 2:
Candidates who want recognition of prior learning to achieve a full qualification. These candidates require their prior learning (either formal or informal) to be recognized; these candidates do not wish to complete any studies but require assessment of their evidence so that they can achieve the full qualification (certificate or diploma). It is possible that these candidates may need to do some studying and may find that they need to attend some modules. The RPL fee would be charged unless the cost of the required modules exceeds the RPL fee.

In both instances above, the RPL candidate will be assessed against the assessment criteria of the whole qualification. Where learning is required, the entire Learning & Assessment Guide should be applied. Where assessment of RPL is required, evidence checklists and an RPL Assessment Guide should be followed.

CATEGORY 3:
eta students who did not complete their course
Students who did not complete their eta course and who think they are eligible for RPL, must have attended a minimum of 60% of their course and have successfully completed at least 50% of their summative assessments. Students who did not attend the required amount or who have done insufficient assessment are not eligible for RPL and must re-register to re-attend the course and pay the full course fees. Students can only apply for RPL if they studied with eta within 2-years of applying for RPL e.g. a student wishing to be assessed in 2006 must have studied with eta after 2004.

Candidates who studied with eta before the 2-year period are only eligible for RPL if they have worked in the industry since attending their course and have had a chance to learn in the workplace, over and above their time of study with eta.

No other options for RPL are available unless candidates fall into any of the above categories.

In all the instances above, the RPL candidate will be assessed against the assessment criteria of the whole qualification. Where learning is required, the entire Learning & Assessment Guide should be utilised by the candidate and applied by the assessor. Where assessment of RPL is required, evidence checklists and an RPL Assessment Guide should be followed.

RPL candidates who do not need further learning and who wish to be assessed against a qualification must produce evidence of their current competence and use the exit level outcome statements of the qualification to guide them with their evidence.
RPL candidates in category 2 above are likely to fall in to one of the following sub categories:

FITNESS INDUSTRY EXAMPLES

Candidates qualified with an industry recognized Personal Trainer qualification, HMS degree or partially completed degree and have been working with clients and are employed or are running their own business.
Candidates qualified with an aligned qualification e.g. physiotherapy who have been working in fitness or exercise and rehabilitation and running their own business.
Candidate without any formal qualification but who have many years of experience and have successfully run a personal training and practice and worked with clients.
Candidates qualified with an industry recognized qualification, have NOT been working in the fitness industry since they qualified

SPORT COACHING EXAMPLES

Candidate qualified with a federation’s qualification which may or may not represent some of the learning towards some of the coaching science qualification.
Candidate qualified with an aligned qualification e.g. Nat Certificate Fitness, Degree in Human Movement Science, Personal trainer qualification, sports conditioning trainer , who have been working in sport and or fitness or running their own practice.
Candidate without any formal qualification but who has many years of experience and has successfully coached a team or athletes.
Candidate qualified with a recognized qualification of some sort but has NOT been working in sport coaching since they qualified
In the examples a), b) and c) above, the candidates should be able to provide valid and current direct evidence of their competence against the Exit Level Outcomes of the qualification. They should also be able to show supplementary evidence of competence in the form of certificates, affidavits from supervisors or letters from clients.

Candidates who fall in to the example d) above are not likely to have direct evidence of their current competence as they would not have worked with athletes or teams and produced evidence of having worked with them. They would not be able to generate the kind of evidence required to show proof of their ability, elative to the outcomes of the new qualification. This type of candidate is more likely to fall in to category 1.

RPL WORKSHOP AND ASSESSMENT FEE

Registration and RPL workshop
If you decide to apply for RPL you will need to register for an RPL workshop and pay the registration fee. Once you are registered, you will be sent an evidence checklist to prepare for the RPL workshop.

You MUST bring any evidence on the evidence checklist to the RPL workshop. After the workshop, you will complete an RPL assessment exam. If the evidence that you have brought to the workshop is insufficient, you will need to complete assessment tasks. These tasks may include assignments, practical projects or demonstrations. You may wish to purchase an eta manual and you can speak to your eta campus about this.

RPL assessment
Base Line/entry level knowledge exam
Candidates with a current (within 5-years) human movement science degree, sport science degree or an eta personal trainer or group fitness trainer diploma may be exempt from this base line exam, if they can show proof of working in the field at the time of the test. If they have not been working in the field, their qualification must be no less than 3-years old. The cost of the exam is included in the RPL fee. If candidates fail the knowledge test (achieving less than 70%) they will be recommended to attend modules in their areas of weakness. Candidates can also take the exam when they submit their Portfolio of Evidence.

NB:No exams can be taken or portfolios assessed unless the RPL fee has been paid

Summative Assessment
The RPL Assessment Fee includes support, assessment, feedback and reports. If you wish to register for RPL assessment (no learning modules included), you need to complete the registration form at the workshop or interview. You will pay a portion of the RPL Assessment fee up front and the balance when you hand in your Portfolio of Evidence for assessment. Your RPL fee will include a follow up interview where you can discuss your work with your tutor and any problems that you may be having with gathering evidence or preparing assessment tasks. Also included is the assessment fee which allows for one complete assessment of a Portfolio of Evidence and one follow up assessment. If first submission has insufficient evidence or the evidence does not met criteria then candidates will be asked to re-submit. This re-submission is included in the RPL fee. Any further submissions will incur extra costs. See the Assessment policy for full details.

Completing Learning Modules
If you need to do extra modules with eta in order to achieve the qualification, you will need to ask your courses consultant to help you with the costs. Costs are based upon a percentage of the course. If the modules you require represent less than 25% of the credit value of the entire course then you pay the fee for each module needed. If the modules you require exceed 25% of the credit value then a percentage of the full course fee will be charged. For example, if you are going to complete modules amounting to 40% of the course then you will pay 40% of the full course cost. The registration fee is R500 and this is added on.

RPL Module costs
If you wish to register for Modules to fill in gaps that you have identified from your RPL workshop, you will need to register for modules. You need to complete a registration form and pay the relevant Module Fee; this is based on the percentage of credits that you have to complete.

Exemptions for candidates wishing to attend an entire course
Candidates wishing to achieve a National Certificate may be exempt from certain sections of the learning programme. For example, a candidate who completed a sport federation certificate have a valid certificate for their code but do not have the National Certificate Coaching Science they would need to complete modules (or do research at home) to achieve areas not covered in their original learning programme.

RPL COSTS:
RPL workshop Fee R500
RPL Assessment fee R5000
RPL Re-assessment R500