Malcolm Venter

The 2009 Matric results have, once again, revealed the sad state of our education system, with two out of every five who wrote failing, and with a pass rate 2% lower than in 2008. The pass rates for gateway subjects such as Maths, Science and Accounting, and the failure rate for Home Language were also alarming. We must, however, give Minister Motshekga her due – for a change, there was no ducking and diving and sensational spinning. The results also put paid to the view – often held by those who do not want believe that anything good can be done by the government (or South Africa) – that standards are dropping in order to get good results. As President Zuma put it, the drop in the pass rate was an indication of ‘the rigour of our examinations’.

The key question which arises is: Why should this be so? Various factors have been mentioned: poor (or unqualified) teachers; lack of resources; ineffective school leadership; poor socio-economic circumstances; and so on. All of these are valid and need to be addressed. However, there is one simple but vital factor which seems to have escaped the notice of analysts.

And it relates to the point made by the President – the ‘rigour of our examinations’. The National Senior Certificate (NSC) is based, in the end, on an examination system: School-based Assessment accounts for only 25% of the final mark; and even this is moderated beforehand and then, if severely out of sync with the final examination mark, is adjusted to bring it in line. Which means that, in the end, it is actually part of the exam system.

But the problem arises from the huge gap in the types of assessment between the GET and FET bands. In FET, the main emphasis is on tests and exams: the Subject Assessment Guidelines (SAGS) pay lip-service to other types of assessment. It is stated (page 1) that Continuous Assessment should use ‘various types of assessment forms, methods and tools’. But this is not reflected in the actual requirements for assessment: each subject must include two exams and two tests (out of seven for most subjects). Although it is then stated that the remaining tasks (three for most subjects) ‘should not be tests or examinations’ and that they should include such assessments as ‘debates, presentations, projects, simulations, written reports, practical tasks, performances, exhibitions and research projects’, the actual requirements per subject ignore these. In the languages, for example, all the tasks are pencil-and-paper tasks (other than the assessment of speaking the language). Similarly, in History, the SAG states that ‘the remaining three tasks should make use of different forms of assessment such as source-based writing, assignments or investigations’ – all pen-and-paper. In other words, the assessment tasks are all exam-orientated, and therefore help to prepare learners for the final NSC examination.

Not so at the GET level – one could believe that the two bands are unrelated. Here examinations are non-existent – and even tests are relegated to one of many different forms of assessment. The Assessment Guidelines (Annexure A) mention tests, but then go on to list a host of other types of assessment as equal in status. Where schools veer away from this variety, they are slammed for relying on ‘pen-and-paper tests’. The result is that learners are suddenly thrust into exam-mode in Grade 10 – and, to make matters worse – the end-of-year-exam counts 75% of the total mark.

Who would consider a sports programme which did not coach the players for the game? Who would consider producing a play without rehearsals? And yet this is what we do with our learners: for nine years, they play around with little tasks set on little pieces of work, most often in collaboration with others; and then, suddenly, in the last three years, they are expected to handle examinations which demand sitting and concentrating for a long period of time, answering demanding questions – on their own – based on large sections of work.

This is one of the reasons why the schools which have not obeyed the letter of the law and used more tests and have – skande! – set exams for learners in primary school and in Grades 8 and 9 of the high school have fared better in the final exams than those that have allowed themselves to be browbeaten my zealous bureaucrats and Whole-School evaluators.

If the Department wants to improve the matric results, then, one of the things they must do is to relegate the ‘other’ types of assessment to informal daily assessment, and to require schools to draw up an assessment programme which consists of tests, research assignments and examinations focussed on preparing learners for an end-of-year examination, from primary school upwards, which forms a major part of the overall assessment – possibly starting with 50% in primary school, and then gradually increasing to 75% in high school.