Durban - “Embarrassing”, “fickle” and “acting like children” is how education experts have described the impasse between Education Minister Angie Motshekga and teacher unions over the Annual National Assessment (ANA).
The department announced two weeks ago that ANA would be cancelled this year, until it announced a swift decision on Friday that the tests would now be written in December.
Education experts have slammed the department’s decision and warned that the public spat was childish, while the teacher unions have remained resolute that the assessments would not happen.
In a joint statement, the unions – Sadtu, Natu, Naptosa, PEU and SAOU – said ANA was “not in the best interest of our learners or for the provision of quality education”.
The unions want the ANA – which is written by Grades 1 to 9 – to be remodelled systematically and to be used as a diagnostic tool rather than in its current format.
Natu deputy president, Allen Thompson, said teachers must focus on curriculum and preparing reports for the end of year. He said their teachers would not administer the assessments and would be marking matric and final year scripts at schools.
Sadtu general secretary Mugwena Maluleke said the Department of Basic Education’s (DBE) forcefulness would not help and said they would not allow unions to be oppressed.
The DBE said it had a robust and productive meeting with teacher trade unions on Sunday in Pretoria. Among the items on the table for discussion were the recent developments around the ANA.
Education spokesman Elijah Mhlanga said the dates set for assessment by the department were not up for negotiation.
“All provinces indicated that they will be able to go ahead with the ANA to avoid the assessments being carried over into next year and avoid disrupting the system.
“As the department we advise all teachers to ignore the messages being circulated and instead prepare to administer ANA in December in the best interests of learners and the sector as a whole,” he said.
Professor Kobus Maree, an education psychologist at the University of Pretoria, said the department had made a bad decision and warned that pupils would be disrupted in their preparation for final year exams.
“Why deal with education in such a haphazard manner? This is a really pivotal matter, if it wasn’t so tragic it would be laughable,” he said. “It’s a short-sighted decision, we have professionals acting like 7-year-old children in a tug of war,” he said.
Maree said he was siding with the unions and called for external professionals to act as arbitrators and step in.
“It’s embarrassing, I am dumbstruck… teachers are caught in the crossfire, how on earth can they make such decisions and bully each other round after round?” he said.
Professor Labby Ramrathan, an education expert at the University of KwaZulu-Natal, said ANA needed to be reviewed to serve its purpose of getting a sense of the state of education in relation to literacy and numeracy.
He said the assessment should be done at least every three years to allow for interventions where weaknesses were found.
“The problem is that you have schools teaching to ANA and that adds pressures on the learners needlessly, I agree with the unions, it is not serving its purpose. Right now it is being used to identify schools not performing well, but no interventions are in place.
“We need to come together and have a benchmark system and give importance to the curriculum before ANA… Yes there is a problem and ANA is identifying that, but there is no intervention, so all that is happening is we are nailing the schools and teachers,” he said.
Ramrathan said his advice to teachers was to focus on completing the Curriculum and Assessment Policy Statements curriculum and put their energy in ensuring pupils were being taught.
Professor Jonathan Jansen, vice-chancellor at the University of Free State, called for ANA to be implemented every three years.
“Whatever their political motives, I agree with the teacher unions. What is the purpose of annual diagnostic tests when in fact the system has not changed? Testing can become habitual, adding no value to the educational achievements of children,” he wrote to his followers on Facebook.
Vee Gani, of the KZN Parents’ Association, said tons of money had been spent preparing the exams and said they should go ahead as the unions’ complaint had come at the last minute.
“If we want to do this properly we must get rid of the mid-year examinations and put in ANA for all subjects. The problem is also that no concrete plans have been made to look at the results. We have a situation where, after the ANA, we say ‘what now?’. We need to deal with that,” he said.
KZN Principals’ Association head, Erica Hayes-Hill, said they did not want to muddy the waters, but acknowledged that teachers were caught between a rock and a hard place.
Daily News