Assessment remodelling must be based on educational evidence

© Lucian Milasan – 123RF.com

The NECT welcomes the constructive way in which the Department of Basic Education and the unions have managed concerns over the administration of the ANA. While the decision to postpone the assessments could have been reached earlier, to enable schools to review their internal assessments in advance, continuing with the administration of the assessments could have adversely affected the integrity of this important programme, which provides a useful indication of the gaps in teaching and learning.

Note must be made of the fact that the implementation of new national programmes does not result in an immediate and predictable upward movement of the curve measuring performance but rather a pattern that spikes up and down, demonstrating necessary adjustments along the way. The concerns raised by the unions should be seen as one of the tweaks necessary for the programme to mature. For these reasons, the proposed task team remodelling the ANA should be given the opportunity to propose adjustments and the inevitable improvements. NECT strongly recommends that the task team makes its recommendations based on educational evidence.

In line with the reasons given by the unions, the task team should focus more on what should be done by teachers, school principals and the education department to fill the learning gaps identified by ANA. There are interesting initiatives countrywide that have been set in motion by universities, NGOs, the department and the unions to address these learning gaps. These initiatives signify a shift from focusing on teachers and to how to improve teaching.

The NECT is involved with eight districts in a programme to address the learning deficiencies in classrooms. It works with government, business, labour and civil society to improve teacher professionalisation, management development and learner welfare in 20% of the national schools population. The programme focuses on improving the day-to-day teaching and school management tasks, which practice together forms a set of teaching behaviours and cultures. Learning will improve if the basic teaching business processes in the classrooms are made more efficient in order for the learners to cover more of the expected curriculum.

Godwin Khosa, CEO of the NECT said, "The improvement of learning in South Africa requires a common purpose between teachers, school managers, education officials and parents to help the learners cover more of the curriculum at the correct level. It is a more a matter of better organisation of the schools and classrooms and increased efforts from both schools and households than the many theories that are bandied around."