Head Saw Doctor

The Head Saw Doctor refurbishes, sharpens and maintains blades, tooling and tool room equipment and calibrates cutting equipment.

The Head Saw Doctor trade is a technical competence applicable to, and required by, forestry industry but very useful to the meat processing subsector within general manufacturing. The development of a formal qualification, as opposed to the current inadequate skills programmes, is critical to improve the skills base and performance of various economic sectors that produce various timber products for both local and export markets. The industry has identified a variety of critical and scarce skills needed to address the increasing skills shortages and their impact. Head Saw Doctor-related skills are in scarce and high demand, and the sector relies on an increasingly smaller pool of experts to service the industry. This qualification draws a learner from the current pool of employees that individual companies trained in-house, as well as new employees interested to secure jobs within the industry. The current employees will receive the critically important theoretical training and benefit from more structured practical and workplace training. A more trained workforce will enhance productivity, reduce wastage, incidences, as well as improve the quality of service provided by the Head Saw Doctor. This qualification will ensure job sustainability and employability of qualified learners within a very competitive market. The majority of qualified Head Saw Doctors are aging. There is a need to attract school-leavers to continue the expertise. This represents the reality of the past and provides significant possibilities to transform the work environment. This transformation is legacy-related as the majority of qualified Head Saw Doctors are White males, but is also related to the restoration of formalised quality standards within a highly technical scarce skill occupation previously ignored. The Recognition of Prior Learning (RPL) of the skills embedded in this qualification will reward those proficient and capable with a qualification that will ensure the wider scope of employment opportunities in the sectors specified. The Head Saw Doctor, as a trade, embodies a progression of accumulated skills and expertise, thereby promising career path opportunities and possible articulation. This highlights the need for qualifications which would ensure a combination of knowledge and employable skills covering functional areas, such as: Saw Filer, Saw Setter, Profile Grinder, Saw Maintainer and Benchman. This trade, as the exit qualification, should address the needs of new entrants in the labour market in equally the same way as capacitating current employees already performing the function to aspire to higher job opportunities. Qualified learners will progress to Management qualifications or cross-sector qualifications as specified in the articulation section. In a sector, which holds the promise of economic growth, a qualified learner will bring much-needed skills to the industry and also obtain entrepreneurial opportunities to consult, train and import international services and product into a burgeoning market.

Recognition of Prior Learning (RPL): RPL for access to the external integrated summative assessment: Accredited providers and approved workplaces must apply the internal assessment criteria specified in the related curriculum document to establish and confirm prior learning. Accredited providers and workplaces must confirm prior learning by issuing a statement of result or certifying a work experience record. RPL for access to the qualification: Accredited providers and approved workplaces may recognise prior learning against the relevant access requirements. Entry Requirements: The entry requirement for this qualification is: • Level 1 with Mathematics.

1. Maintain tool servicing and cutting machinery equipment and place blades in operational position.