The Minister further stressed the priorities of the Department which included the eradication of inequality in the schooling system. She had agreed with education MECs on key priority areas for 2012 - an integrated planning process for the sector to align all plans and strategies. While the results of the 2011 Annual National Assessments (ANA) was generally unfavourable, they revealed the full extent of learner performance deficits in the system. More importantly, they gave a benchmark to help monitor progress or lack thereof in subsequent tests. Through ANA, the Department knew exactly where the problems were and were better equipped to deal with them. The Department, in 2012, would focus on the refinement of ANA and step up work on the early years of schooling.