In Washington, a place known for spin by both Democrats and Republicans, reports by the nonpartisan Government Accountability Office are regularly and confidently quoted as fact by both sides. This is a story about one of those reports that went awry, leading to charges of partisanship and a lawsuit filed against the GAO. </img> </img> </img> </img> </img>


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Giyani - A Limpopo school circuit has instructed all schools within its jurisdiction to offer compulsory Saturday classes for matric pupils as of this week.

The Man’ombe circuit in Giyani achieved a 76.4 percent matric pass rate last year and aims to achieve 90 percent this year.

“From now on, Saturday will be regarded as a normal school day for all Grade 12 learners in 14 schools,” circuit manager Steven Maringa told parents during celebrations of the circuit’s 2010 results on Friday.

Maringa said the decision was taken during a meeting at the Greater Giyani municipal offices on 26 January.

He said the meeting was facilitated by a delegation from the Mopani district regional education department.

“The pupils will attend the Saturday classes in their school uniform,” said Maringa.

Mopani regional education department’s senior manager Lebuwani Mafenya said matrics needed to strive for university exemption.

“We should be concerned with the number of pupils who achieve university entrance results. Of the 1 193 matric pupils we had last year, only 323 [achieved university exemption]. We should do more this year to improve this number and also to achieve our 90% target,” said Mafenya.

She also warned teachers not to advance pupils to the next year out of sympathy.

“When pupils get condoned in every grade they attend, we end up having pupils in Grade 12 who never actually passed a grade,” she said. “If a learner has failed, let him or her fail. Don’t add marks or condone them to another grade on the basis that they’ve repeated a particular grade several times.” – BuaNews

Pretoria - Despite her recent visit to the Eastern Cape to resolve challenges facing the provincial education department, Basic Education Minister...

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Pretoria - More than six million learners throughout the country's public schools will on Tuesday sit for their Annual National Assessments (ANA).

The assessments, which have been set by the National Basic Education Department in order to provide a benchmark for all schools in the basic education sector, will be conducted from Grades 1 to 9.

The assessments are one of the key strategies that have been put in place by the department to improve learner achievement by 2014.

It is intended to provide regular, well-timed, valid and credible data on learner achievement in the education system.

According to the department, unlike examinations that are designed to inform decisions on learner promotion and progression, ANA data is meant to be used for both diagnostic purposes at individual learner level and decision-making purposes at systemic level.

"At the individual learner level, the ANA results will provide teachers with empirical evidence on what the learner can and/or cannot do at a particular stage or grade and do so at the beginning of the school year.

"At systemic level, ANA provides reliable data for policy decisions related to provision and support required at various levels of the system, the ANA will make it easier for district offices to determine where support is most urgently needed and by allowing principals, teachers and parents to plan in a more informed manner how to improve performance," the department explained.

The assessments will be administered and marked by teachers and moderated by districts. At national level, the department will also sample scripts for moderation (limited to Grades 3, 6 and 9) to check if marking was done consistently across districts and provinces.

"Schools will then report individual learner results to the learners' parents in March and the schools that shall be sampled for independent external verification of ANA at Grades 3, 6 and 9, marking and reporting to the Minister will be done by an independent agent," said the department.

Motshekga is expected to report on the performance of Grade 3, 6 and 9 in ANA by March of every year.

In the Foundation Phase (Grades 1-3), learners will write the tests in the language of learning and teaching of the child, which could be any one of the 11 official languages. In the Intermediate Phase (Grades 4-6), learners will write in one of the languages of learning and teaching (English or Afrikaans).

In the Senior Phase, only learners who were in Grade 9 in 2010 and who are now in Grade 10 will write the assessments as a pilot project and 50 schools in each province have been selected to participate.

"In 2011, Grade 9 tests will be piloted on samples of Grade 10 learners in 50 sample schools in each province. In subsequent years, Grade 9 ANA will follow the same pattern as the other grades.

"These learners will write the language test in either the Home Language or the First Additional Language and the Mathematics test," the department explained.

A timetable can be found on the department's website education.gov.za - BuaNews

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