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Certificate will provide 'quality assurance'

Your report of August 5 titled "New exit certificate for Grade 9s" contained mistakes which, if left uncorrected, could cause confusion about an otherwise good initiative from the Minister of Education.

Your report of August 5 titled "New exit certificate for Grade 9s" contained mistakes which, if left uncorrected, could cause confusion about an otherwise good initiative from the Minister of Education.

Firstly, let me deal with your headline, which referred to the proposed certificate as an exit certificate. This is not going to be an exit certificate, but an access certificate to facilitate movement in various directions within the education system.

The Department of Education seeks to keep all pupils within the system for as long as they can stay. The reasons for the General Education Certificate, as it will be known, is to make sure there are various benchmarks along the system, relative to learning, and not only in Grade 12.

The certificate will assist in providing the education system with a quality assurance mechanism to benchmark performance and set a standard for all teachers and schools to work towards.

The certificate will ensure quality of teaching, learning and assessment in the entire general education and training band, which is a compulsory phase by law, and not only in Grade 9.

It is also the Department of Education's view that the certificate will further raise accountability across the system of education and public confidence in the quality of education being provided from Grade R to Grade 9.

Lunga Ngqengelele, ministerial spokesman

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