All processes regarding National Senior Certificate (NSC) “are going ahead as planned”‚ Basic Education Minister Angie Motshekga said on Friday.
With “37 days remaining until the start of the 2015 NSC”‚ Motshekga said‚ “examination papers have been set and have been sent to provinces (and) provinces have appointed markers.
Her comments came a day after a meeting of the Council of Education Ministers‚ which was given a “detailed mid-year review of the basic education sector”.
Motshekga said: “This year we have a very large number of matriculants writing the examinations. The total number of registered candidates are 801688 with 674232 of those being full-time candidates and 127456 part-time candidates.
She added that “the figures involved in this year’s NSC examinations are remarkable”.
“We have printed over 10-million question papers that are ready to be distributed to almost 7000 examination centres. We will have 65000 invigilators and 35000 markers in 118 marking centres around the country.”
Motshekga also announced that the “CEM deliberated on the Annual National Assessments (ANA) and the events of recent weeks”.
“The minister and (education) MECs considered all developments around this matter and arrived at a decision that ANA should be written this year.”
Last week‚ Motshekga was reported as admitting that there needed to be a change in the frequency of the assessments.
This came just few hours before she was due to meet teacher union‚ the SA Democratic Teachers’ Union (Sadtu)‚ which previously said it was boycotting this year’s assessment.
Motshekga said her department now had an understanding of what the problems were and hinted that the assessments might now be carried out every two years.
ANAs were introduced in 2010 as a diagnostic tool to assess numeracy and literacy for pupils between grades 1-9.
This year’s ANAs were scheduled to be written from September 15-18.
Sadtu had said it would instruct all its members not to participate in this year’s ANAs as they reduced to an “onslaught on teachers with no intention to improve the system by ensuring fit for purpose intervention in the form of ongoing professional development for all in the system that was supposed to be part of the diagnosis“.
Motshekga at the time said it was likely they would agree to change the frequency of the yearly assessments‚ she said it might take time to process an agreement on the issue.
On Friday‚ Motshekga also touched on “misconceptions in the media regarding the addition of Mandarin to a list of 15 other additional foreign language options”.
“This forms part of a country to country agreement‚ like those we have with other countries‚” she said.
“To reiterate‚ Mandarin is now available to schools that wish to offer it at an optional third language level. It will have no impact on our current compulsory curriculum in which it is mandatory to take two South African languages.”
The CEM meeting was also briefed on the progress of the “Incremental Introduction of Indigenous African Languages” which will see “schools that previously only offered English and Afrikaans will now be mandated to offer an African Language from Grade 1 and continue incrementally year on year”.
Motshekga confident that its all systems go for matric exams
All processes regarding National Senior Certificate (NSC) “are going ahead as planned”‚ Basic Education Minister Angie Motshekga said on Friday.
With “37 days remaining until the start of the 2015 NSC”‚ Motshekga said‚ “examination papers have been set and have been sent to provinces (and) provinces have appointed markers.
Her comments came a day after a meeting of the Council of Education Ministers‚ which was given a “detailed mid-year review of the basic education sector”.
Motshekga said: “This year we have a very large number of matriculants writing the examinations. The total number of registered candidates are 801688 with 674232 of those being full-time candidates and 127456 part-time candidates.
She added that “the figures involved in this year’s NSC examinations are remarkable”.
“We have printed over 10-million question papers that are ready to be distributed to almost 7000 examination centres. We will have 65000 invigilators and 35000 markers in 118 marking centres around the country.”
Motshekga also announced that the “CEM deliberated on the Annual National Assessments (ANA) and the events of recent weeks”.
“The minister and (education) MECs considered all developments around this matter and arrived at a decision that ANA should be written this year.”
Last week‚ Motshekga was reported as admitting that there needed to be a change in the frequency of the assessments.
This came just few hours before she was due to meet teacher union‚ the SA Democratic Teachers’ Union (Sadtu)‚ which previously said it was boycotting this year’s assessment.
Motshekga said her department now had an understanding of what the problems were and hinted that the assessments might now be carried out every two years.
ANAs were introduced in 2010 as a diagnostic tool to assess numeracy and literacy for pupils between grades 1-9.
This year’s ANAs were scheduled to be written from September 15-18.
Sadtu had said it would instruct all its members not to participate in this year’s ANAs as they reduced to an “onslaught on teachers with no intention to improve the system by ensuring fit for purpose intervention in the form of ongoing professional development for all in the system that was supposed to be part of the diagnosis“.
Motshekga at the time said it was likely they would agree to change the frequency of the yearly assessments‚ she said it might take time to process an agreement on the issue.
On Friday‚ Motshekga also touched on “misconceptions in the media regarding the addition of Mandarin to a list of 15 other additional foreign language options”.
“This forms part of a country to country agreement‚ like those we have with other countries‚” she said.
“To reiterate‚ Mandarin is now available to schools that wish to offer it at an optional third language level. It will have no impact on our current compulsory curriculum in which it is mandatory to take two South African languages.”
The CEM meeting was also briefed on the progress of the “Incremental Introduction of Indigenous African Languages” which will see “schools that previously only offered English and Afrikaans will now be mandated to offer an African Language from Grade 1 and continue incrementally year on year”.
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