Railway Track Supervisor

The purpose of this part-qualification is to provide qualifying learners with the knowledge, understanding, competence and experience required to operate as a Railway Track Master. A Railway Track Supervisor constructs, aligns, repairs, and maintains permanent way infrastructure, components, and associated works to ensure the safe running of trains. A qualified learner will be able to: • Construct, maintain and rehabilitate basic and specialised railway lines and per-way elements. • Prepare, join and repair basic and specialised rail tracks and track components. • Inspect, plan, and coordinate the construction and maintenance of permanent railway lines. In addition, learner attributes (including problem solving, decision making, interpreting and communicating information and applying essential methods and techniques) will be integrated in the learning process. Learners will have to prove competence of the above knowledge, skills, attitudes, responsibilities, and tasks imbedded in the exit level outcomes.

This part-qualification forms part of the Occupational Certificate: Railway Track Master. "Railway Track Master" is also recorded as a Trade. The specific need was identified during the development of the Occupational Certificate: Railway Track Master when it became clear that current trade workers might wish to upskill themselves by completing this "new" component to the qualification. Railway Track Supervisors have been identified as a scarce skill in the Transport sector. The development of railway infrastructure is a key driver for economic development. In South Africa, one of the barriers to accelerated economic development is the provisioning of cost effective and reliable mass transport systems for both freight and passenger services. A key strategy in the National Development Plan is the improvement and proper maintenance of infrastructure. Currently and in the future, there is a need for skills and abilities to build and maintain an ever-growing railway network. The part-qualification is targeted at providing the fundamental human resource capabilities required to supervise the work required to deliver this strategy. This part-qualification is required as part of a career path for railway track construction workers and will thus benefit the sector society and the economy. Typical learners likely to be attracted to this part-qualification are the workers in the rail construction sector who have completed related qualifications and wanting to further their careers. Learners entering this part-qualification will exit with an NQF Level 4 qualification which may in future enable them to pursue further management studies within the Civil Engineering field. This part-qualification will contribute to the full development of the learner by providing recognition, further mobility, and transportability within the sector. This part-qualification forms part of a suite of related qualifications (originally all developed as part-qualifications but had to be registered separately) to create an occupational pathway with several options to follow, each resulting in employment opportunities in areas of specialisation but with the possibility to expand knowledge and skills. This part-qualification was developed specifically to enable learners with any of the associated qualifications to further specialise. These qualifications include the Occupational Certificate: Railway Track Welder, NQF Level 3; Occupational Certificate: Railway Track Constructor, NQF Level 3. The relationship and career path opportunities between the various qualifications are quite complex and is outlined in detail in the various curricula. This part-qualification Occupational Certificate: Railway Track Supervisor NQF Level 4 will provide learners who have completed either the Occupational Certificate: Railway Track Welder, NQF Level 3 or Occupational Certificate: Railway Track Constructor, NQF Level 3 an opportunity for career progression.

1. Demonstrate the ability to inspect, plan, and manage rail construction and maintenance of projects and processes, by applying key terms, rules, concepts, established principles, theories and health and safety requirements.