Continuing Education for Africa (CEFA) was established in 2004 as an accredited Service Provider for the HWSETA.  We are registered with the Department of Higher Education and Training (DHET) and all our current training programs are registered with SAQA, Umalusi, and (where applicable) with the South African Council for Social Service Professions (SACSSP).  We are a Section 21, Not for Profit Company (Registration No. 2007/007587/08) and we meet all BEE requirements.  CEFA was the first (for a long time the only) accredited service provider for Social Auxiliary Work training.  CEFA is the proud recipient of the prestigious ISOE and Best Practice awards.  Our head office is based in Wellington, Western Cape, and we have branch offices in various provinces of South Africa and the rest of Africa.  

We focus mainly on work place training, on the job training and have breached the traditional lack of integration between specialized functional training in the social services sector and advanced management skills. The unique knowledge combination engineered in various joint ventures and teeming agreements ensure an educational outcome where learners gain an understanding of both advanced functional work of the social services encapsulated in CEFA and command of the directive power of advanced training offered by our specialist partners. Our qualifications are not isolated educational exposures but developmental journeys and experiences that carry learners upstream into the mainstream qualification products of tertiary institutions such as for instance an MBA embedded into the social services.

CEFA is proud of a unique training model. It is unique in the sense that training occurs in communities, is outcomes based, programmes are accredited and on various NQF levels. All programmes comply with the requirements of the NQF, SAQA and the relevant ETQA. Training takes place at the workplace which ensures that people are trained whilst they continue to work, thereby remaining economically independent. Together with the training of learners, members of the community are empowered to be used as facilitators and are supported by mentorship and coaching. This way indigenous knowledge is embedded in the subject matter and sustainability of the project is ensured.

CEFA's training is backed by scientific research in partnership with leading researchers and various universities by providing careful measurement and analysis of education and training interventions in communities. This way positive results are maximised and used for future growth and negative results are weeded out. CEFA measures the quality of the training, the ability of trainees to apply what they have been taught – and the extent to which those trainees are making a contribution to the upliftment of their communities and the enhancement of their well being. To ensure quality to each project CEFA offers a community well-being situation analysis in order to provide all stakeholders with the data needed to effectively prioritise essential interventions and focus training and resources on the critical gaps hindering the attainment of “a better life for all".