Annual National Assessment tool - ANA Cheryllyn Dudley MP ACDP ACDP thanks teachers dedicated to their role in education * congratulates the Minister on progress and acknowledgment of where weaknesses are and work lies ahead * calls on DBE to strengthen capacity and ability of teachers, school managers and district curriculum officials to use ANA results effectively In his second State of the Nation Address on the 11 February 2010 President Jacob Zuma announced that: “...all Grade 3, 6 and 9 students will write literacy and numeracy tests that are independently moderated.” This was the start of the Annual National Assessment tool - ANA. ACDP MP Cheryllyn Dudley recalled that For the ACDP. this was a welcome intervention as the idea of ANA is to gauge the extent to which the basic education system is impacting on the critical areas of numeracy and literacy. Concerns regarding numeracy and literacy skills were broadly shared and the ACDP had on many occasions called for attention to what we saw as the fundamentals of education. ANA, which is meant to help the sector to self-correct, provides assistance to both teachers and society not only to diagnose the problems but also to devise improvement plans across the system. Since 2011 - annually - learner responses have been analysed and schools have formulated targeted remedial programmes - while progress has been made in certain areas, other areas need longer-term interventions. In the Foundation Phase targeted interventions by the Department have helped to achieve the goals that were set in the Action Plan 2014 in both Mathematics and Home Language. In Grade 6 there has been a large increase in the percentage of learners achieving acceptable levels for both Mathematics and Home Language but the target has not been achieved in Mathematics. In Grade 9 Mathematics achievement is still unacceptably low although there was an increase in the percentage of learners reaching acceptable levels in Home Language. Improved Home Language skills have also improved the performance of foundation phase learners in Mathematics. In the transition from foundation phase to the intermediate phase, however, learners find it difficult to handle the more technical aspects of language usage and find it difficult to correctly answer questions in Mathematics that involve ‘words or high text’ problems. This creates a learning gap which continues into the senior phase. Analysis shows that the few who passed mathematics did however demonstrate higher quality responses than in the past. This suggests that, in a few schools, there has been a focus on the teaching and learning of these critical skills but not in the majority of schools. Generally, there has been good teaching of factual information but not sufficient engagement in logical reasoning, which is a critical skill in Mathematics. The Minister of Basic Education has said the results of the 2014 ANA indicate that learners in the senior phase require immediate and radical intervention as Mathematics and Language results are below the minimum promotion levels of 40% and 50%. ACDP MP Cheryllyn Dudley called on the Minister and the department to ensure that In 2015, a greater effort will be made to strengthen the capacity and ability of teachers, school managers and district curriculum officials to use this information effectively - Knowledge and skills inadequacies clearly need further urgent attention she said. This is the first ANA that involves the entire General Education and Training Phase (GET). ANA 2014 was administered on more than 7, 3 million Grades 1-9 learners in all public schools. The learners in each grade participated in testing their knowledge and skills in literacy (language) and numeracy (Mathematics). Where applicable, the tests were modified for learners who have special learning needs, so that the assessment can be seen as not only credible, but also sensitive - in line with South Africas commitment to an inclusive education system. The overall performance in ANA 2014 shows an upward trend in performance with average percentage scores increasing by a maximum of 8% in Mathematics in Grade 1 and also increases in all other Grades, except Grade 9. The proportion of learners who achieve acceptable levels of performance stand at over 80% in Grade 1 Mathematics. The unacceptably low performance in Grade 9 Mathematics is disappointing and will require persistence and an unwavering commitment to improving the grasp of mathematical concepts by learners in all grades - and improving the apparent lack in teachers - of the requisite academic level in Mathematics to teach Grade 9 Mathematics The ACDP commends and thanks the many teachers in South Africa who are dedicated to the education of every person in South Africa - young and not so young. We also congratulate the Minister and her department on the progress made to date - and the open acknowledgment of where the weaknesses are and where the work lies ahead of us.
Posted on: Sat, 06 Dec 2014 08:57:53 +0000
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