A Word from Steve Harris

Our 2011 students have left campus and will be having a good time putting what they’ve learnt into practice.  That’s one of the amazing things about this industry; you can work and have fun at the same time, because work should be fun. I bumped into a former student the other day.  He was working-out in a local club but said he was not having fun.  “I can’t get a job” he exclaimed.  How is that possible in an industry where there are more job opportunities than job seekers? I dug a bit deeper and it seems he can’t actually get a job in the club he wants to work in. 

The thing to remember about your eta qualification is that it does not get you a job – it gives you a qualification that enables you to do the job.  If you have an eta qualification and you are not getting a job it’s time to look at the real reason that gets anybody job - how you come across and how you present yourself. The MD of one the largest club chains in South Africa has an eta qualification, so does the marketing manager of SA Rugby.  If you still can’t get a job then go and get a client, then get another and another and soon you’ll have enough clients to earn the kind of money you would like AND you will be your own boss, perhaps giving other people jobs!

Walk for Wheels: Craig Sieben

Imagine leaving your whole life back home and embarking on a journey through Africa to create awareness and help disabled children. That is what Craig Sieben is currently doing. He is 127 days into his 222 day trip through 15 countries from Cape Town to Port Said, Egypt. The great thing is that Craig is 27 and until now was a hockey coach, educator and entrepreneur, he just has a passion to make a difference and 'pay it forward'. Why is this relevant? Because Craig used to be part of the eta faculty! 

After meeting Chaeli Mycroft, founder of the Chaeli Campaign, Craig decided to drop everything and 'do more' to help people like Chaeli who are born with disabilities. But unlike Chaeli, the families and communities of the children he is helping do not understand their situations and do not necessarily have the means to get the children the help that they may need. This is where Craig will help them by educating the families and raising funds to buy the necessary equipment for the differently abled. 

If you want to know more about Craig's trip, read about it on his website here or follow him on Twitter, @walk4wheels!

New 3-year diploma for 2013

Great news, we are launching two new qualifications In February 2013 in line with legislative changes in higher education. These new qualifications will be the Diploma in Sport and Exercise Science and the Diploma in Sport and Recreation Management.  Sound familiar? Maybe it does, but unlike our current two-year diplomas at level five, these new qualifications take three years to complete and will be registered at level six on the Higher Education’s Qualification Framework.  This is great news – it means more recognition academically for your qualification and easier portability to other qualifications in higher education.

We have developed new learning programmes to achieve these qualifications because the changes in higher education affect all providers.  As you know, eta is a registered private provider - we are registered with the Department of Higher Education and Training and we are accredited by the Council for Higher Education (CHE) to offer our own accredited programmes.  As a registered and accredited provider, we are required to align our programmes to the new framework and make sure that we comply with the legislative changes.  This means that within a given time frame (determined by the CHE), we must make changes to our programmes and we must align to the new Higher Education Framework. 

To ensure our alignment, we will change our current level five Certificates to meet the criteria of the new Higher Certificate at level five.  This means very little change to the syllabus of the current Certificates in Fitness, Coaching Science or Sport Management.  All that will happen is that the name of the one-year qualification at level five will change to Higher Certificate.  Over time, our campus will migrate to the three-year programmes at level 6 and we will, in all be phasing out the two-year diploma at level five.  The level five diploma will however still be offered through Special Projects through RPL and possibly through Distance Learning. 

We are creating a bridging programme to help second year level-five diploma students access the third year and ultimately achieve the new level six diploma.  We will be offering a pilot bridging programme to access the new level-six Diploma in Sport and Recreation Management.  This bridging programme will be a joint venture between eta Cape Town and eta Stellenbosch campuses in 2012. If you want to know more, contact Sally Lee in Cape Town on sally@etasa.co.za or Jaco van Rensburg in Stellenbosch on jaco@etasa.co.za.

welcome to the eta blog

Hi there,

We will be using this blog to keep you up to date with the most current events in the industry.  This means that we will try to tell you about what is happening in fitness, in sport and also in education. 

There is a lot happening in higher education at the moment which means that you will see some changes in the qualifications that we will be offering at eta.  By 2013 we hope to offer a Diploma in Sport and Exercise Science at level 6 - this will take 3-years to complete.  More about this later.