Johannesburg - The education of more than 8 million children has been thrown into disarray after the Department of Basic Education bowed to pressure from teacher unions and postponed the Annual National Assessments (ANAs).
The postponement seemed cast in stone as early as Tuesday when the South African Teachers Union (Sadtu), which is the majority union, threatened to boycott the tests. It called on its members to refuse to administer and mark the assessments.
Two other teacher unions – the National Professional Teachers Organisation of South Africa (Naptosa) and the South African Teachers Union – also demanded that the assessments be done in three-year cycles in order to create time for remedial action.
The tests, which assess the literacy and numeracy levels of pupils from grades 1 to 6 and in Grade 9, were due to start on Tuesday but have been postponed till February.
Basic Education Minister Angie Motshekga made the decision in spite of her concerted efforts last week to rescue the tests when she held meetings with the unions.
A statement signed by the leadership of the three unions said it had been a joint decision to postpone the tests.
The unions said a three-year cycle for the ANAs would create time for remedial action.
The tussle between Motshekga and the unions has raised the alarm on the government’s ability to enforce policy and on questions about the power that unions affiliated to the ANC-led tripartite alliance hold, according to education researchers and political analysts.
Following the announcement of the postponement on Friday, the department has admitted that it would have to go back to the drawing board to consider alternative means to improve pupils’ literary and numeracy competency.
It said the postponement was in the best interest of schooling stability and would assist in improving the quality and thrust of the national assessment programme.
A task team comprising teacher unions and department officials has since been established to address the unions’ grievances and assist the department to remodel the assessments.
As the department mulls over the problem, the unions are also celebrating the fall of the “Gazette regime”, which refers to what they argued was the department’s tendency to publicly issue policy in Government Gazettes and through circulars without consulting them.
The unions also got the department to commit to improving its relationship with them, and channel more resources into teacher development. They said Basic Education Director-General Matanzima Mweli had committed to urgently addressing matters affecting the working conditions of teachers.
Explaining its call for a boycott, Sadtu general secretary Mugwena Maluleke and deputy general secretary Nkosana Dolopi accused the department of waging a “well-orchestrated low-level war” against unions and of continuously failing to improve teachers’ working conditions.
At an education research conference at Stellenbosch University last month, Motshekga pledged that more guidance would be provided to schools on how to use the assessments to improve classroom practice, and she acknowledged that her department needed to work on refining the tests.
Education researchers have frequently pointed to the flaws in the assessments. The chief arguments were that the results weren’t comparable over years, and that schools had taken to cheating.
Naptosa president Basil Manuel said schools and education districts often felt so pressured to perform in the assessments that they neglected the curriculum.
“Teachers would prepare pupils for what is to come in the diagnostic tests, which is not supposed to happen,” Manuel said.
The Star