Basic Education Committee receives briefing on 2013 National Senior Certificate Results

On Tuesday, 18 February, the Portfolio Committee on Basic Education received a briefing by its respective department on the 2013 National Senior Certificate (NSC) results with Basic Education Minister, Angie Motshekga, in attendance. The Council for Quality Assurance in General and Further Education and Training (Umalusi) also briefed the Committee on their assessment of the NSC process.

Umalusi presented to the Committee first highlighting areas of concern that pertained to the 2013 NSC results. In terms of centralised and on-site marking verification, markers still had problems “interpreting answers to open-ended and higher order questions”, and there were markers assessing literature questions when they did not have thorough knowledge of the books, poems or plays they were marking. Another concern was the delay in submission of question papers. In this regard, Umalusi urged the department to look closely into the appointment of markers.

Umalusi’s presentation went on to show that the majority of the irregularities experienced during the NSC process were technical in nature, and some irregularities were a result of registration-related problems. However, Umalusi remained upbeat stating that the marking was found to be “fair, valid and reliable”, and that they were “pleased with the manner in which the 2013 NSC examination was administered”.

DA MP, Donald Smiles, voiced his concern about what measures had been taken to rectify the marking, as it compromised results. He was assured that all the issues had been discussed between Umalusi and the Department, and they were in the process of addressing the concerns.

Recently reinstated Director-General of the Basic Education Department, Bobby Soobrayan, said that there were significant strategies that were put in place after the dismal results of the NSC in 2009. One of these strategies was the Annual National Assessment (ANA) programme, which became a corner stone of the action plan to improve the sector.

According to the presentation, the ANA presents opportunities to reflect on what has been achieved, lessons to be learnt and challenges that still need to be tackled towards achieving the goals of the action plan. The ANA programme was performed on 125 schools per province. A comparison of the results for 2012 and 2013 showed an improvement across all grades, except for Grade 1. The Department also expressed concern about Grade 9 learners, which they deemed the problematic grade.

In terms of learners in Grade 3 that performed above 20% in mathematics, there had been an improvement from just over 35% in 2012 to close to 60% in 2013. In terms of Grade 6, there was an improvement from just over 10% in 2012 to over 25% in 2013 for mathematics. However, with respect to Grade 9, there had been no improvement from 2012 to 2013 in the number of learners obtaining over 50% for mathematics. For the first additional language, an improvement from 2012 to 2013 could be observed for Grades 4, 5 and 6, with Grade 9 indicating a decrease in performance.

Performance of the provinces for Grade 3 mathematics indicated that there has been an improvement across all provinces. The performance of provinces with Grade 3 language indicated that the national average had dropped, with only one province, KwaZulu-Natal doing marginally better in 2013. However, the national average had dropped from 52% to 50.8% in 2013 for the Grade 3 average language percentage mark. Grade 6 average performance in mathematics has increased across all the provinces, with the national percentage increasing from 26.7% to 39%. The national acceptable level of achievement with regard to Grade 6 mathematics had increased from 10.6% to 26.5%. Grade 6 first additional language marks also showed an improvement across all provinces, with the national average increasing from 35.6% in 2012, to 45.7% in 2013. An improvement could also be observed in the Grade 6 first additional language acceptable achievement.

In terms of Grade 9 mathematics, a marginal increase in performance could be seen in only one province. In terms of the acceptable achievement of Grade 9 mathematics, there had been a marginal increase in the national average. The achievement levels of Grade 9 in mathematics indicated disappointing results across all provinces. In terms of gender, girls in Grades 3, 6 and 9 had outperformed the boys.

MPs suggested that the student-teacher ratio should be assessed, while the Minister also voiced concern that many Grade 11 and 12 learners were dropping out of schools. She said it saddened her that 30% of Grade 12 learners dropped out, given that “they are survivors”.

For the full report, click here.

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