Umalusi, the Council for Quality Assurance in General and Further Education and Training, has declared the South African examination system ready for the 2013 final examinations. While the focus at this time of the year is normally on the National Senior Certificate (NSC) or matric examinations - Umalusi is also responsible for quality assuring the General Education and Training Certificate for adults (GETC) and the National Certificate Vocational (NCV).
All these examinations are set to get underway soon, and it is a mammoth task to ensure that the system is ready to assess such a large volume of learners in so many examination centres throughout all nine provinces. For the NSC alone, the 2013 examinations will be written by some 707 136 learners and will take place across more than 6 699 examination centres. These examinations will be overseen by about 65 000 invigilators and will be marked by over 35 000 markers in 118 marking centres across the country.
At every stage of the assessment process, Umalusi subjects the systems and processes involved to scrutiny. All examination papers are moderated and approved by Umalusi before they can be written by the learners.
The internal assessments that take place in schools also fall within Umalusi's mandate, and these assessments are monitored, learners' tasks are moderated, and the final marks that contribute to the overall results are also statistically moderated to ensure consistency and reliability. Finally, the administration of national examinations is monitored, marking is verified and the final results are also statistically moderated.
In early 2011, following the 2010 examinations, Umalusi took an unprecedented and historic step to reveal its statistical moderation processes to the public to ensure that the nation has faith in the manner in which examination results are processed. Umalusi has in subsequent years continued this practice.
The process of statistical moderation of results is standard practice across the globe, and it is done in order to ensure that any fluctuations in the difficulty of examinations from one year to another are corrected.
As the quality assurer for this important sector of the South African education system, Umalusi's role is to monitor the public assessment systems (Department of Basic Education and Department of Higher Education and Training), the accredited private assessment body Independent Examinations Board (IEB) and the provisionally accredited South African Comprehensive Assessment Institute (SACAI).
Umalusi is delighted to announce that SACAI applied for accreditation with Umalusi and they have since been granted provisional accreditation. SACAI will pilot their full National Senior Certificate exams in 2014.
Overall, Umalusi is satisfied with the preparations for the end-of-year exams, and is confident that the general education system is adequately prepared to run these assessments successfully.
That is not to say, however, that Umalusi does not have some outstanding concerns regarding the upcoming national examinations. Key among these concerns is the status of Limpopo and the Eastern Cape, as provinces in which the education departments are currently under administration.
Umalusi has recommended to the Department of Basic Education that intensive monitoring of these provinces needs to be instituted to mitigate possible unintended consequences of this situation. For its part, Umalusi will also intensify its monitoring where it deems it necessary to do so.
Further, Umalusi has also identified various critical posts within the provincial education departments that remain vacant, and this situation cannot be allowed to continue as it inevitably puts the system under unnecessary additional strain. Finally, there are critical budgetary constraints within certain provincial education departments that are coupled with such staff vacancies which Umalusi believes is an on-going risk.
Enquiries:
Lucky Ditaunyane
Senior Manager: Public Relations and Communications
Cell: 083 227 6074
Tel: 012 349 1510
Email: lucky@umalusi.org.za
