Yvonne Shapiro

Topic: Quality assurance perspective - Information Management for Occupational Qualifications
Company: Director National Learners’ Records Database, SAQA

Yvonne Shapiro is the Director of the National Learners’ Records Database (NLRD) at the South African Qualifications Authority (SAQA), the organisation responsible for the implementation of South Africa’s National Qualifications Framework.  She leads the process of populating the NLRD with both the content of qualifications and unit standards and the records of who achieves them, as well as analysing the NLRD data and providing a qualification verification service.  The NLRD report, Trends in Public Higher Education in South Africa (updated approximately every three years), is one of SAQA’s flagship publications.

Ms Shapiro joined SAQA at the beginning of 2001 from the Human Sciences Research Council (HSRC), when the Register of Graduates – which she had managed for four years – was incorporated into the NLRD.  While at the HSRC she co-authored South African Graduate Statistics 1999 - Profiles and Recent Trends, edited and wrote for The Graduate (the annual publication of the Register of Graduates), and contributed a chapter on employment equity and race relations to the survey report, South Africa 2000: Perceptions and Perspectives.  Prior to joining the HSRC, she briefly taught high school mathematics and science, then moved into industry, managing the Technical Data Department of SANS Fibres for ten years, as well as leading and participating in multidisciplinary projects for system improvement and participative management in the factory.  She then completed a one-year contract at the University of Cape Town’s Equal Opportunity Research Project (now the African Gender Institute), compiling a resource package on employment equity and producing a video, Putting the Affirmative into Action – Dr Mamphela Ramphele Speaks on Employment Equity (1994).  She subsequently became a consultant and researcher on employment equity best practice and organisational development.  During this time she was contracted by the University of the Western Cape to produce the report, Information Technology for the Twenty-first Century: A Survey of Computer Literacy at UWC (1995).

Ms Shapiro holds a Bachelor of Science (Psychology and Statistics), and a Higher Diploma in Education.  She has participated in several professional organisations, including the Southern African Association for Institutional Research, the IPM Affirmative Action Network and the Cape of Good Hope Centre for Jungian Studies, and has been on the committees of some of them.  She also teaches Circle Dancing, and administers the South African Circle Dance Network.