Total Concept Academy, Port Elizabeth

Total Concept Academy has been running in Newton Park, Port Elizabeth since 1993, with a second campus in George. Its Hairdressing and Barbering Diploma runs for one year and six months, and barbering sits in the qualification title rather than being buried inside a general hairdressing syllabus, which is rarer in South Africa than it ought to be.

The published curriculum lists eight modules: hair and skin anatomy and physiology, shampooing and conditioning and scalp treatment, styling, cutting, colouring, chemical treatments, professional customer service, and communication and sales. None of those module titles mentions barbering, shaving or gents work specifically, so the barbering content appears to be distributed through the cutting and styling modules rather than taught as a block of its own. Ask what share of the course it actually accounts for.

On accreditation the academy names ITEC, CIDESCO, QCTO and Services SETA on its homepage but publishes no registration number for any of them, and the diploma page itself names no awarding body at all, saying only that its education is authenticated by respected examining bodies. No SAQA ID is given. That recognition may well be real, but it is not published against this specific course, so ask which body certificates the diploma and request the registration number in writing.

Fees are not published and entry requirements are not stated.