Assessment Policy

South African Mountaineering Development & Training Trust

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Preamble

Two of the basic principles of assessment are that every assessment must be ‘Transparent’ and ‘Consistent’. In other words there should be no possibility of assessments being questioned due to Assessor bias, and assessments must be conducted to the same criteria country wide, meaning that if a second Assessor assesses the same candidate at another time, the same result will be attained.

In order to achieve this, the MDT has, through its Technical Committee adopted the following policy with regards assessments.

Assessor Policy

To be accredited as a MDT Assessor, interested persons must:

Assessors

Hold the relevant MDT “Instructor Level” certificate.

Hold the National Qualification ASSMT01 through the ETDP sector education training authority.

Be an approved MDT ‘Service Provider”

Approval System for Service Providers

Approval as a Service Provider may only be granted to an individual and not an organisation. Initial approval is achieved by submission of the above stated certifications to the National Management Committee accompanied by a Service Provider application form, and is then only for one "Probationary" course which will be observed and moderated at the applicant’s expense. If a favourable report is received, then approval as a Service Provider will be granted for two years.

Service Provider status is only granted for two years. A review at the end of this time enables the Natcom to consider the status of the Service Provider and re certify them if all moderations of courses have been up to standard as determined by the moderation process.

Service Providers must agree to comply with and sign a Code of Conduct.

Existing Service Provider Exemption

In order to accommodate existing Service Providers and allow skills development, existing Providers will be exempt from the requirement of holding ASSMT01 and the Probationary course until December 2005. Thereafter all Service Providers must comply with the Assessor Policy in full.

Workshops

All Service Providers may organise training events or workshops for other Service Providers. Attendance at an approved workshop at least once during the two year period is mandatory for re certification.

Assessment Protocol

1) Assessments may not be undertaken by the same Service Provider who trained a candidate.

Applications for exemption may be made in writing prior to the assessment taking place, and must give reasons for requesting the exemption. This exemption must be granted in writing by Natcom or an appointed person designated for this task, This exemption should be the exception and not become the norm, and only in order to prevent undue hardship by the candidate for financial or other valid reasons.

2) TRS, ASA, SPS & BML, must be assessed by two assessors. One may do the practical assessment, the other may do the logbook assessment.

It is recommended however, that two assessors should preferably be present at the practical assessment, but the MDT understands that this may cause undue hardship on the candidate due to financial or other reasons. This situation can be avoided by having, at least two candidates at the assessment incident and two assessors, each doing 50% of each candidate’s assessment. Therefore each candidate only pays for one assessor.

3) AML, RCL, must be assessed by two assessors. Both Assessors should be involved in the practical & logbook assessment.

Only on pre-approval by Natcom or an appointed person designated for this task, the assessment may be split as a practical assessment and logbook assessment. Approval for this should be the exception and not become the norm. Applications for exemption to this rule must be made in writing prior to the assessment taking place, and must give reasons for requesting the exemption. This situation can be avoided by having, at least two candidates and two assessors at the same time each doing 50% of each candidates assessment. Therefore each candidate only pays for one assessor.

4) Instructor levels must be assessed by two assessors from different Provinces at all stages of the assessment. (Practical & logbook)

No exceptions will be made at this level.

The MDT Quality Management System has been established and is maintained by the Adventure Qualifications Network cc (AQN). If you would like further information about their services to the Adventure Industry, please feel free to contact them at: P.O.Box 2510, Hillcrest, 3650 Tel: 031 767 2160 or by Email www.aqn.za.org