Question 1645
Ms F I Chohan (ANC) to ask the Minister of Basic Education
(1) What is the intention of her department with regard to the common tasks of assessment (CTAs) in Grade 9;
(2) Whether she found that the CTA was ineffective in offering a systemic measure of learning at Grade 9; if not, what is the position in this regard; if so, what are the relevant details?
Responses:
(1) The CTAs have been discontinued in 2010. However, schools will still be required to do an external assessment component that counts for 25 percent of the final assessment mark at Grade 9 level. I have delegated the responsibility of dealing with the 25 percent external assessment component to the provincial MECs for Education until the Curriculum and Assessment policy statements are in place.
(2) The CTAs provided a limited measure of learning at Grade 9 level. Some of the challenges that affected the effectiveness of the CTAs were that the content was not clearly specified per grade for all the Learning Areas. Teachers were left to select the content that they would teach in the classroom.
The CTAs were set nationally and included activities that assessed a range of competences and used particular content to assess learners. Teachers indicated that the content (as well as the context used to phrase the activities) in the CTAs were not familiar to all the learners.
Source: Department of Education
