7 August 2007
The Department of Education (DoE) will be conducting large-scale assessments
of learners at grade three and six during August and September this year to
establish what progress has been made in improving the quality of education and
what constraints there may be in achieving further improvements.
Approximately 3 000 schools serving over 60 000 grade three and grade six
learners have been randomly chosen from all nine provinces and standardised
tests will be administered in these schools by trained assessors. The focus
will be on the foundational areas of literacy and numeracy and learners will be
tested in line with the expected outcomes and assessment standards of the
National Curriculum Statement.
The grade three results will be reported as part of the three-yearly
systemic evaluation process, while the grade six results will be fed into the
international Southern Africa Consortium for Monitoring Educational Quality
(SACMEQ) process, which measures the quality of education in Southern and
Eastern African countries.
Schools will be informed if they are part of the sample, but all schools,
teachers and learners are expected to prepare as if they were to be included in
the testing. As before, those schools that are tested will receive direct and
detailed feedback on their results and teachers parents and learners will be
expected to participate in an improvement plan, following the results. The
overall results will also be analysed to identify some of the common problems
encountered and this information will be provided to all schools in order to
develop their own improvement strategies.
For more information contact:
Palesa Tyobeka
Cell: 083 448 9559
Issued by: Department of Education
7 August 2007
