Background

The Ministry of Labour and Social Security, through the Directorate of Industrial and Vocational Training has a mandate for vocational training based on the Industrial and Vocational Training (IVT) Act of 1982. The Ministry of Labour and Social Security is currently housing the national trade tests standards which are a basis for industrial skills assessment.

The ministry in partnership with the Ministry of Education and Training is embarking on the development of vocational training unit standards and qualifications to register them in the newly approved Eswatini Qualifications Framework (ESQF) in order to align the current approaches in the SADC region.

The Government of Eswatini in this project assisted by the Government of the Republic of China (ROC) – Taiwan under the Technical and Vocational Skills Certification Enhancement Project (the Project). The country in the past years did pilot development of unit standards and a qualification.

The Unit Standards and Qualifications were a result of an extensive consultation process and industry mapping combined with benchmarking from materials from other countries in the region.


Due to evolution in the training sector, the unit standards and qualification need to be revisited to confirm its relevance with current practices and to cover any likely gaps together with removing irrelevant applications.

The materials were not implemented due to lack of structures which are now in place.  The project looks to review the standards for implementation and registration in the Eswatini Qualifications Framework.

To date, we have registered 10 trades with each trade having Level 2, Level 3 and Level 4 qualification. For each trade, there has been a working group composed of industry experts and vocational institution lecturers. The working group were each led by a facilator.

The DIVT appreciates support from the private sector who has joined the Taiwan Technical Mission in providing funding for the development of the qualifications. Some of the private sector players are Eswatini Environmental Authority for the HVAC qualifiaction and the Eswatini Regulatory Authority for the LPG qualification which is currently under review

Qualifications Under Development
The qualifications under development comes from electrical and petroleum engineering.
NQF Qualification
Fields Trades Level_2 Level_3 Level_4
Electrical Engineering Solar PV Installatation and Maitenance -- ✔ ✔
Petroleum Engineering Liquid Petroleum Gas (LPG) Domestic Installation -- ✔ --
The NQF level 2, 3 and 4 qualifications will replace the trade testing Grade 3, 2 and 1 respectively. Other qualifications for other trades will be considered for the NQF alignment. The Solar PV Installation and Maitenance has been recently completed and will be sent for national validation and then registration with EQA.
National Validation 2025
The qualifications undergoing national validation comes from electrical engineering and Petroleum engineering.
NQF Qualification
Fields Trades Qualification Level 3 Unit STDs Level 4 Unit STDs
Electrical Engineering
Solar PV Installatation and Maitenance
Level_3 Level_4
Level_3_STDs
Level_4_STDs
Petroleum Engineering
Liquid Petroleum Gas (LPG) Domestic Installation
Level_3
Level_3_STDs
None
EQA Qualification Registration Documents
The following qualifications are fully registered with Eswatini Qualification's Authority (EQA) and are up to NQF Level 4 . The qualifications are a cluster of unit standards developed by local industry experts, vocational stakeholders and they also contain unit standards from South Africa, New Zealand and Austraila.
Registered Qualifications
The following qualifications are fully registered with Eswatini Qualification's Authority (EQA) and can be used by TVET Stakeholders in developing curricula for their institutions.
Motor Vehicle Machanics Electrician Heating, Ventilation and Air- Conditioning (HVAC) Weldinging & Fabrication