Date: 10/06/2003
Source: Ministry of Education
Title: Asmal: Launch of Foundation Phase Systemic Evaluation Report
SPEECH BY THE MINISTER OF EDUCATION, PROFESSOR KADER ASMAL, MP, AT THE COLLOQUIUM MARKING THE LAUNCH OF THE FOUNDATION PHASE SYSTEMIC EVALUATION REPORT, Eastern Boulevard, Holiday Inn Garden Court, Cape Town, 10 June 2003
Director of Ceremonies
MECs for Education
Heads of Education Departments
Representatives of Teacher Unions and Associations
Colloquium Participants
It gives me great pleasure to officially open this colloquium and to release, to the public and to relevant organs of the national and provincial departments of education, the National Report on Systemic Evaluation in the Foundation Phase.
The release of this report marks a significant event in the history of our education and training system. The report contains the first major baseline study on the state of our schooling system. It establishes empirically-based benchmarks on the performance of our system on a number of key criteria.
It is the first time in the history of education in South Africa that a report of this nature is being released. This demonstrates the confidence the Government has in running the affairs of this country. A less self-confident Government would not subject itself to such scrutiny.
Many countries have participated in international studies at the initiative of external agents, yet only a few have initiated studies of this nature in their own countries. Studies like the Third International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) and the Monitoring of Learning Achievement (MLA) secure the participation of many countries, including our own. But the agenda of these studies are not set by ourselves, but by external agents who might not necessarily share our own worldview. Countries like Great Britain, through the now-defunct Assessment of Performance Unit (APU), and the United States, through the National Assessment of Education Progress (NAEP), have regularly taken the educational temperatures of their schooling systems as we have now done through our own systemic evaluation.
Although it has similarities with studies elsewhere, our systemic evaluation has one different feature. It does not only evaluate students' cognition. It also assesses progress towards the attainment of our key transformation goals of access, equity and quality. This is done through a comprehensive questionnaire distributed to students, teachers, parents and district officials. This will enable us over time to see what progress we are making in meeting the challenges we set for ourselves in the first White Paper on Education and Training.
I should like to emphasise that this evaluation should not be seen as an inter-provincial competition. We have no intention of comparing performances of learners between provinces. This is invidious for the simple reason that we are not comparing like with like. There may be a larger number of rural districts in one province compared to another. The level of resources may vary from school to school.
Through Systemic Evaluation, my Department has provided a national framework for the evaluation of the education system at the key transition stages of Grade 3 for the Foundation Phase, Grade 6 for the Intermediate Phase and Grade 9 for the Senior Phase. This year, we shall conduct the baseline evaluation for Grade 6. We shall then complete the first cycle of system evaluation with the Grade 9 evaluation in 2005.
The first main evaluation survey at the Foundation Phase (Grade 3) was preceded by a pilot study which was conducted in 2000. The Department of Education then hosted a national colloquium in April 2001 to afford all the role players an opportunity to interact with the technical report of the pilot study. Inputs from the colloquium were used extensively to refine the evaluation framework as well as the instruments in preparation for the main study in 2001.
The main surveys were successfully conducted during September 2001 for the Mainstream and February 2002 for Inclusive Education. A 5% random sample of Grade 3 Mainstream learners (over 52 000 learners) from 1 400 schools participated in the study. For the Inclusive Education group, the sample was selected such that it was representative of the following disabilities: Blind; Partially sighted; Physically disabled; Learning disabled; and Deaf. A total of 587 Inclusive Education Grade 3 learners, drawn from 46 special schools, took part in the study.
I would like to express my appreciation for the technical support provided by the Human Sciences Research Council (HSRC), the Research Institute for Education Planning (RIEP), the Centre for Education Policy Development, Evaluation and Management (CEPD), and the University of Pretoria Business Enterprises.
I also wish to thank the British Department for International Development (DfID) for facilitating the involvement of international experts in the design of the evaluation instruments.
I acknowledge the role played by officials from the provincial departments of education who collected and scored the evaluation data.
I am publicly detailing the process through which this study was conducted in order to lay to rest any potential doubts about the level of rigour in the evaluation and its findings. I am confident that, despite typical limitations associated with studies of this nature, the findings of the study are, to a large extent, valid and reliable. Therefore the results can be relied upon to point to areas that need to be strengthened in the transformation of our schooling system.
The results of the Grade 3 evaluation will be discussed in detail by the participants of this colloquium in the next two days. However, I shall briefly concentrate on a few significant findings. Let me begin with the overall results of the assessment of student achievement. Student achievement in the three Foundation Phase learning programmes of Literacy, Life Skills and Numeracy stood at the arithmetic means of 54%, 54% and 30% respectively.
A disaggregation of the Literacy results indicates that students performed differently in the two components of Literacy - listening comprehension, and reading and writing. The average achievement for listening comprehension was 68%, while it was 39% for reading and writing. This bears out the concern I raised when I became Minister of Education in 1999. I was then concerned that the curriculum did not explicitly mention the need for students to know how to read and write.
The performance trends in literacy and numeracy shown by this study is similar to trends in many developed countries. Therefore, it would be folly by anyone to suggest that the performance by our students bucks the international trend.
In fact, given the high rate of participation of children in the Foundation Phase and the legacy of deprivation bequeathed to us by apartheid, the results are not as alarming as some might want to make out. We should not easily forget what apartheid education sought to achieve when its main architect, HF Verwoerd, asked the question "What is the use of teaching the Bantu child mathematics?" Verwoerd and his successors left a legacy which will take some time to overcome. Although our history commands us to admit the damage done by apartheid to the education of generations of black (African, Indian, and Coloured) children, we should never subscribe to the racist assumption that poor performances can only be found among black students. This is simply not true.
Another key finding of the evaluation is that the national indicator for the availability of resources at home is about 31%. The study shows that 57.1% of households in the survey had access to television sets, 45.9% had access to a telephone, 23% had access to newspapers and magazine, 53% had fewer than ten books, and 67.2% had access to a radio. This picture is not yet ideal for our households. I have often asked my Department the question "How can outcomes-based education be implemented without libraries in our schools?" The findings of the systemic evaluation justify my concerns. In order for the poor to derive maximum benefits from outcomes-based education, we have to provide minimum library resources in our schools. This will allow all our students to develop the important skills of investigating, processing, and analysing information.
Another major finding of the study relates to the role of the language of instruction in students' performances. Students who wrote the tests in their home language performed better than those who wrote in a second or a third language. This is a significant finding, given the historical undermining of indigenous languages under apartheid. The findings on language vindicate my Department's Language in Education Policy, which advocates the idea of additive multilingualism - that is, students should first learn in their home languages, and gradually develop competence in other languages.
My Ministry and my Department have long considered the role of language as a major barrier to learning, not only in the Foundation Phase of General Education and Training, but in the entire system. Very soon, I shall announce the establishment of a Ministerial Committee to investigate the possibility of advancing towards the use of some indigenous languages as mediums of instruction in higher education.
The systemic evaluation also found that schools across the country and provinces levied significantly different fees. Almost 69% of schools levied annual fees of R100 or less, while about 18% of schools levied more than R1000 in school fees a year. Given the recent findings of the Review of the Funding, Resourcing and Costs of Education that showed differential state funding for students in different provinces, this result reinforces our commitment to equalise the funding of poor students in the two lowest quintiles across all provinces. This goal was enthusiastically supported by a Cabinet joint committee and by the Growth and Development Summit last Saturday.
The report shows that safety and security in many of our schools still needs attention. This is reported to have a negative effect on the access indicators adopted for the study. In the light of this finding and recent media reports, we face a challenge of making our school safer. However, we should not climb on the alarmist bandwagon that portrays our schools as being among the most unsafe in the world.
It is particularly heartening to note from the report that conscious efforts have been made to assess the transformation in the so-called special schools as well. Of course we are not unmindful of many learners in the mainstream who may also be faced with numerous barriers to learning that are not easily detectable.
We need to ensure that the education and training system promotes quality education and fosters the development of inclusive and supportive centres of learning that would enable all learners to participate actively and extend their potential as equal members of society.
A prerequisite for active participation is the identification and removal of the many factors, in both ordinary and special schools, which act as barriers to learning and development. If educators and managers were to recognise that most barriers to learning are found in the system and are not necessarily due to shortcomings in the learners themselves, they would come closer to critically reviewing their school cultures, policies and practices to ensure inclusivity. In this way, and only in this way, shall we be able to afford every learner an opportunity to experience the full excitement and joy of learning.
For the participants in this colloquium, I would like to leave you with some challenges. First, I call on you to interact with the report rigorously. Lift the key findings, and interrogate them critically. Second, I urge you to begin developing intervention strategies for the short-, the medium, and the long-term. Advise us on what is desirable, and more importantly, on what is feasible within our financial and human resource environments.
I indicated earlier that like other studies of this nature, the systemic evaluation might have some limitations. I should, finally, like to call on you as participants to devise ways and means of addressing these limitations. This will benefit the remaining two rounds of the current cycle of evaluation, and for the next cycle, which begins with the systemic evaluation of Grade 3 in 2006.
I now officially release the first report on systemic evaluation to the public.
I thank you
Ngiyabonga
Dankie
Ke ea leboga
Issued by Ministry of Education
10 June 2003
Source: Ministry of Education
Title: Asmal: Launch of Foundation Phase Systemic Evaluation Report
SPEECH BY THE MINISTER OF EDUCATION, PROFESSOR KADER ASMAL, MP, AT THE COLLOQUIUM MARKING THE LAUNCH OF THE FOUNDATION PHASE SYSTEMIC EVALUATION REPORT, Eastern Boulevard, Holiday Inn Garden Court, Cape Town, 10 June 2003
Director of Ceremonies
MECs for Education
Heads of Education Departments
Representatives of Teacher Unions and Associations
Colloquium Participants
It gives me great pleasure to officially open this colloquium and to release, to the public and to relevant organs of the national and provincial departments of education, the National Report on Systemic Evaluation in the Foundation Phase.
The release of this report marks a significant event in the history of our education and training system. The report contains the first major baseline study on the state of our schooling system. It establishes empirically-based benchmarks on the performance of our system on a number of key criteria.
It is the first time in the history of education in South Africa that a report of this nature is being released. This demonstrates the confidence the Government has in running the affairs of this country. A less self-confident Government would not subject itself to such scrutiny.
Many countries have participated in international studies at the initiative of external agents, yet only a few have initiated studies of this nature in their own countries. Studies like the Third International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) and the Monitoring of Learning Achievement (MLA) secure the participation of many countries, including our own. But the agenda of these studies are not set by ourselves, but by external agents who might not necessarily share our own worldview. Countries like Great Britain, through the now-defunct Assessment of Performance Unit (APU), and the United States, through the National Assessment of Education Progress (NAEP), have regularly taken the educational temperatures of their schooling systems as we have now done through our own systemic evaluation.
Although it has similarities with studies elsewhere, our systemic evaluation has one different feature. It does not only evaluate students' cognition. It also assesses progress towards the attainment of our key transformation goals of access, equity and quality. This is done through a comprehensive questionnaire distributed to students, teachers, parents and district officials. This will enable us over time to see what progress we are making in meeting the challenges we set for ourselves in the first White Paper on Education and Training.
I should like to emphasise that this evaluation should not be seen as an inter-provincial competition. We have no intention of comparing performances of learners between provinces. This is invidious for the simple reason that we are not comparing like with like. There may be a larger number of rural districts in one province compared to another. The level of resources may vary from school to school.
Through Systemic Evaluation, my Department has provided a national framework for the evaluation of the education system at the key transition stages of Grade 3 for the Foundation Phase, Grade 6 for the Intermediate Phase and Grade 9 for the Senior Phase. This year, we shall conduct the baseline evaluation for Grade 6. We shall then complete the first cycle of system evaluation with the Grade 9 evaluation in 2005.
The first main evaluation survey at the Foundation Phase (Grade 3) was preceded by a pilot study which was conducted in 2000. The Department of Education then hosted a national colloquium in April 2001 to afford all the role players an opportunity to interact with the technical report of the pilot study. Inputs from the colloquium were used extensively to refine the evaluation framework as well as the instruments in preparation for the main study in 2001.
The main surveys were successfully conducted during September 2001 for the Mainstream and February 2002 for Inclusive Education. A 5% random sample of Grade 3 Mainstream learners (over 52 000 learners) from 1 400 schools participated in the study. For the Inclusive Education group, the sample was selected such that it was representative of the following disabilities: Blind; Partially sighted; Physically disabled; Learning disabled; and Deaf. A total of 587 Inclusive Education Grade 3 learners, drawn from 46 special schools, took part in the study.
I would like to express my appreciation for the technical support provided by the Human Sciences Research Council (HSRC), the Research Institute for Education Planning (RIEP), the Centre for Education Policy Development, Evaluation and Management (CEPD), and the University of Pretoria Business Enterprises.
I also wish to thank the British Department for International Development (DfID) for facilitating the involvement of international experts in the design of the evaluation instruments.
I acknowledge the role played by officials from the provincial departments of education who collected and scored the evaluation data.
I am publicly detailing the process through which this study was conducted in order to lay to rest any potential doubts about the level of rigour in the evaluation and its findings. I am confident that, despite typical limitations associated with studies of this nature, the findings of the study are, to a large extent, valid and reliable. Therefore the results can be relied upon to point to areas that need to be strengthened in the transformation of our schooling system.
The results of the Grade 3 evaluation will be discussed in detail by the participants of this colloquium in the next two days. However, I shall briefly concentrate on a few significant findings. Let me begin with the overall results of the assessment of student achievement. Student achievement in the three Foundation Phase learning programmes of Literacy, Life Skills and Numeracy stood at the arithmetic means of 54%, 54% and 30% respectively.
A disaggregation of the Literacy results indicates that students performed differently in the two components of Literacy - listening comprehension, and reading and writing. The average achievement for listening comprehension was 68%, while it was 39% for reading and writing. This bears out the concern I raised when I became Minister of Education in 1999. I was then concerned that the curriculum did not explicitly mention the need for students to know how to read and write.
The performance trends in literacy and numeracy shown by this study is similar to trends in many developed countries. Therefore, it would be folly by anyone to suggest that the performance by our students bucks the international trend.
In fact, given the high rate of participation of children in the Foundation Phase and the legacy of deprivation bequeathed to us by apartheid, the results are not as alarming as some might want to make out. We should not easily forget what apartheid education sought to achieve when its main architect, HF Verwoerd, asked the question "What is the use of teaching the Bantu child mathematics?" Verwoerd and his successors left a legacy which will take some time to overcome. Although our history commands us to admit the damage done by apartheid to the education of generations of black (African, Indian, and Coloured) children, we should never subscribe to the racist assumption that poor performances can only be found among black students. This is simply not true.
Another key finding of the evaluation is that the national indicator for the availability of resources at home is about 31%. The study shows that 57.1% of households in the survey had access to television sets, 45.9% had access to a telephone, 23% had access to newspapers and magazine, 53% had fewer than ten books, and 67.2% had access to a radio. This picture is not yet ideal for our households. I have often asked my Department the question "How can outcomes-based education be implemented without libraries in our schools?" The findings of the systemic evaluation justify my concerns. In order for the poor to derive maximum benefits from outcomes-based education, we have to provide minimum library resources in our schools. This will allow all our students to develop the important skills of investigating, processing, and analysing information.
Another major finding of the study relates to the role of the language of instruction in students' performances. Students who wrote the tests in their home language performed better than those who wrote in a second or a third language. This is a significant finding, given the historical undermining of indigenous languages under apartheid. The findings on language vindicate my Department's Language in Education Policy, which advocates the idea of additive multilingualism - that is, students should first learn in their home languages, and gradually develop competence in other languages.
My Ministry and my Department have long considered the role of language as a major barrier to learning, not only in the Foundation Phase of General Education and Training, but in the entire system. Very soon, I shall announce the establishment of a Ministerial Committee to investigate the possibility of advancing towards the use of some indigenous languages as mediums of instruction in higher education.
The systemic evaluation also found that schools across the country and provinces levied significantly different fees. Almost 69% of schools levied annual fees of R100 or less, while about 18% of schools levied more than R1000 in school fees a year. Given the recent findings of the Review of the Funding, Resourcing and Costs of Education that showed differential state funding for students in different provinces, this result reinforces our commitment to equalise the funding of poor students in the two lowest quintiles across all provinces. This goal was enthusiastically supported by a Cabinet joint committee and by the Growth and Development Summit last Saturday.
The report shows that safety and security in many of our schools still needs attention. This is reported to have a negative effect on the access indicators adopted for the study. In the light of this finding and recent media reports, we face a challenge of making our school safer. However, we should not climb on the alarmist bandwagon that portrays our schools as being among the most unsafe in the world.
It is particularly heartening to note from the report that conscious efforts have been made to assess the transformation in the so-called special schools as well. Of course we are not unmindful of many learners in the mainstream who may also be faced with numerous barriers to learning that are not easily detectable.
We need to ensure that the education and training system promotes quality education and fosters the development of inclusive and supportive centres of learning that would enable all learners to participate actively and extend their potential as equal members of society.
A prerequisite for active participation is the identification and removal of the many factors, in both ordinary and special schools, which act as barriers to learning and development. If educators and managers were to recognise that most barriers to learning are found in the system and are not necessarily due to shortcomings in the learners themselves, they would come closer to critically reviewing their school cultures, policies and practices to ensure inclusivity. In this way, and only in this way, shall we be able to afford every learner an opportunity to experience the full excitement and joy of learning.
For the participants in this colloquium, I would like to leave you with some challenges. First, I call on you to interact with the report rigorously. Lift the key findings, and interrogate them critically. Second, I urge you to begin developing intervention strategies for the short-, the medium, and the long-term. Advise us on what is desirable, and more importantly, on what is feasible within our financial and human resource environments.
I indicated earlier that like other studies of this nature, the systemic evaluation might have some limitations. I should, finally, like to call on you as participants to devise ways and means of addressing these limitations. This will benefit the remaining two rounds of the current cycle of evaluation, and for the next cycle, which begins with the systemic evaluation of Grade 3 in 2006.
I now officially release the first report on systemic evaluation to the public.
I thank you
Ngiyabonga
Dankie
Ke ea leboga
Issued by Ministry of Education
10 June 2003
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