Cape Town - The SA Democratic Teachers’ Union in the Western Cape has called for a boycott of the provincial education department’s annual language and maths skills tests for pupils, saying children are being over-tested.
In a statement released on Monday, Sadtu said it had, on several occasions, asked the Western Cape Education Department to stop the systemic tests, but to no avail.
The department has tested the language and maths skills of primary school children every year since 2002, focusing initially on grades 3 and 6.
Grade 9 was added in 2010.
This year’s tests are scheduled to be written from October 11 to 25.
“Sadtu is of the view that South African learners are over-tested. The reality is that there is no real opportunity to analyse the data obtained from the test, so that interventions, which may improve the mathematics, numeracy and literacy levels of learners in their particular grades or age cohorts, are implemented.
“Annually tests are conducted and the union has seen no significant changes, due to the fact that intervention programmes are either not implemented, or the times allocated for these programmes are not sufficient.”
The union said teachers’ criticisms of the tests had included that test scores were used to identify schools for potential closure, that the duration of the test was not appropriate for the age cohort and that the department spends millions of rands on systemic evaluation in a financial year, while the number of teaching posts for next year will remain stagnant.
Jonavon Rustin, the union’s provincial secretary, said the union was holding meetings with parents and school governing bodies to inform them of the boycott.
Last year, the Cape Argus reported that protests against the tests had been held at a number of schools in the Western Cape with some parents refusing to let their children write the assessments.
The department also confirmed that some schools had declined to write the annual tests.
On Monday the department’s spokesman, Paddy Attwell, said it didn’t believe that children were “over- tested”.
“The tests tell us exactly what we have to do to improve the language and maths skills of learners in all schools. The main beneficiaries of the tests have been children in our poorest schools.”
He said independent service providers set, administered and marked the tests externally to ensure objective results.
“This is no burden to teachers or schools, as teachers play no role in the testing and testing only takes place on one day at every school. The tests have contributed significantly to improving the quality of education in the Western Cape, by providing detailed feedback to individual schools on areas needing attention.”
He said the department had used the results to inform teacher training and ongoing support.
“The tests have therefore contributed significantly to continued professional development.”