Education on 2015 National Senior Certificate examinations

The National Senior Certificate examinations (NSC) will officially commence on Monday 26 October 2016 and end on Friday 30 November 2015. The 2015 NSC examination, which is the eighth NSC examinations, will be administered across a total of 6 797 examination centres in the country.

A total of 801 688 candidates have enrolled for the 2015 NSC examinations which includes 674 232 full-time and 127 456 part-time candidates. This signifies an increase of 122 644 full-time candidates and a decrease of 10 581 part-time candidates. 

Scope and size of the 2015 NSC examinations

Administration of the 2015 NSC examinations

This section will focus on the following key areas relating to the administration of the NSC examinations in 2015:

• Registration
• ​Development of question papers
• Preparation for marking
• ​Quality assurance of school-based assessment
• ​Measures to curb irregularities
• Monitoring

Registration

The registration of candidates for the 2015 NSC examinations commenced in March 2015 and the capturing of registration data has been completed by all PEDs. All provinces have sent out at least one preliminary schedule to schools for checking and verification of the registration data. 

The accompanying tables and graphs provide a summary of national enrollments as at 21 August 2015

Table 1: NSC Enrolments per Province: 2011 to 2015

Table 2: Subject Enrolments 2011 to 2015

 The number of candidates who registered for Mathematics is 273 348, an increase of 43 460 candidates compared to 2014. The enrolment for Physical Sciences has also increased by 28 293 from 170 857 to 199 150. The overall increase in enrolment figures has resulted in an increase in all subjects. 

Development of Question Papers and Plans for Printing and Distribution

A total of 258 question papers for the November 2015 and March 2016 examinations were set and moderated by the Department of Basic Education (DBE) to ensure a national standard. All question papers for the November 2015 examinations were approved by Umalusi. The papers were handed to Provincial Education Departments (PEDs) for printing based on their printing plans. Question papers were only handed to PEDs one week before printing commenced to minimise the security risk. In addition, 67 non-official language question papers that were set by the IEB were also submitted to the PEDs for printing. 

Adaptation of the question papers for the blind, partially-sighted and deaf candidates (LSEN candidates) has also been finalised. Brailling of the adapted papers for the blind has been completed and the papers have been handed to PEDs. Printing in PEDs commenced on 15 August 2015, as the PEDs have adopted the approach of delaying printing to minimise the security risk.

Preparation for Marking

PEDs have completed the appointment of markers for the 2015 NSC examinations. The DBE has audited the marker lists in selected subjects to ensure that PEDs comply with the criteria for appointment as articulated in the Personnel Administrative Measures (PAM) and that competent markers are appointed. The DBE is satisfied with the markers appointed and where there were concerns, these were corrected by the PED concerned.

The DBE will continue with the following strategies to enhance the quality of marking which were implemented in the marking process in 2014, for the first time:

(a) Tolerance range in the moderation of marking, where the mark on the scripts, after they are moderated should not deviate by more than 2-3%. This will confirm that the marking standards of the marker are regarded as appropriate.

(b) Authorisation of chief markers and internal moderators by the DBE. In this case all chief markers and internal moderators, based on their marking of actual scripts at the DBE training session, are authorised or not authorised to mark. 

(c) Authorisation of markers by PEDs. This is the authorisation of markers that is done at the provincial marking centre.

(d) Centralised marking of small subjects. Having successfully implemented the centralised marking of Dance Studies and Agricultural Technology in Pretoria in 2014, the DBE plans to add two more subjects, namely Agricultural Management Practices and Music for centralised marking in Pretoria in 2015.

 Quality Assurance of School-based Assessment

Moderation of SBA at school, district and provincial level is ongoing. The DBE conducted an audit of the provincial and district SBA moderation systems from 28 June to 10 July 2015. The focus of the audit was to assess the current status and progress made with Grade 11 SBA moderation systems and evaluate the progress made on SBA issues raised and reported for Grade 11 and 12 in 2014. In addition the moderation of Grade 11 and 12 assessment tasks and learner evidence were done in 16 selected districts across all 9 PEDs. Seven key subjects were moderated in each district and the sample covered 10 schools per district. The DBE extended the moderation of SBA to include Grade 11 for the second time this year.

A second national moderation will be conducted in October 2015 and will evaluate the assessment tasks and the learner evidence. This also includes the Practical Assessment Tasks (PATs).

In the case of Life Orientation, a Common Assessment Task (CAT) was developed by the DBE and administered in all PEDs on 4 September 2015. National marking guideline discussions for Life Orientation were hosted in Pretoria to ensure standardisation of marking across all PEDs. Candidates who were unable to write the common Task on 4 September due to ill health, were provided with the opportunity to write a supplementary Life Orientation Common Assessment task on 12 October 2015, prior to the commencement of the NSC examinations.

​Measures to curb irregularities

During the writing of the 2014 NSC examinations and the marking process the DBE, Umalusi and PEDs identified a number of incidents of group copying. This caused alarm in the education system given the propensity of these kinds of irregularities to discredit the credibility of the examination system. To eradicate the phenomenon of group copying the DBE has adopted the following proposed measures and progress on each is presented in the table below:

Monitoring

The DBE has been monitoring and supporting provincial education departments (PEDs) on an ongoing basis to ensure that all functions in preparation for the examinations are on track. 

The 2015 monitoring approach is a five-pronged approach comprising the following:

(a) Audit of the examination centres

(b) Audit of marker appointments

(c) Support and monitoring of the invigilator training 

(d) Evaluation of the provincial monitoring system 

(e) Final evaluation of the system’s readiness to administer the 2015 NSC examinations 

In terms of the audit of the examination centres, PEDs categorised their centres according to low, medium and high-risk centres based on a set of pre-determined criteria. The DBE has provided PEDs with an audit instrument to utilise in the evaluation and categorisation of all centres registered for the 2015 NSC examinations. On the basis of the information received from the provincial audits, the DBE deployed its part-time monitors to conduct a sample audit of selected centres.

The DBE also conducted an audit of marker appointments in all  PEDs.

Strengthening invigilation of the NSC examinations is one of the measures that will be utilised to curb irregularities in the 2015 NSC examinations. The DBE has developed a national Invigilator Manual which was discussed and adopted at the Invigilator Training Session. This manual was utilised to train invigilators in all PEDs in September 2015.

The DBE has developed a framework for monitoring which indicates what needs to be monitored in PEDs and districts. The monitoring programme for each PED must address the following: district state of readiness, monitoring of the writing by PEDs, monitoring of the writing by districts and monitoring of release. The PEDs have submitted their monitoring programmes based on the framework provided for evaluation by the DBE. The DBE is in the process of evaluating the monitoring programmes and will provide feedback to PEDs.

The summative evaluation of the ‘state of readiness’ of the system involved provincial visits by the DBE to each of the nine PEDs which started on Thursday 6 August 2015 and concluded on Tuesday 1 September 2015. The DBE verified the evidence of information gathered from previous monitoring activities during the provincial visits. Concurrent visits were conducted in all districts by members of the DBE monitoring team. 

This intensive evaluation of the readiness of the PEDs to administer the NSC examinations is carried out to identify any shortcomings prior to the examination and assessment process and to deal with them prior to the commencement of the examinations to avoid a recurrence of the irregularities that occurred in KwaZulu-Natal and Eastern Cape in the 2014 NSC examinations.   

• Processing and Release of Results
• Marking will be completed in all the PEDs by 15 December 2015.
• ​Mark capture will be completed by 18 December 2015.
• ​Pre-standardisation meetings with PEDs will be held on 21 and 22 December 2015.
• The Umalusi standardisation meeting to be held on 23 December 2015.
• Results will be thoroughly checked by the DBE, PEDs and Umalusi from 26 to 29 December 2015.
• The Umalusi approval meeting is to be held on 30 December 2015.
• Results will be released on 5 January 2016by the Minister and on 6 January 2016 by MECs and the media.

Conclusion

The DBE can conclude that all PEDs are ready to administer the 2015 NSC examinations. 

Enquiries:
Elijah Mhlanga 
Cell: 083 580 8275