Basic Education: E-marking and teacher accreditation in the spotlight

The South African Council for Educators (SACE) and Council for Quality Assurance in General and Further Education and Training (Umalusi) presented their budget review to the Portfolio Committee on Basic Education this week. Amid talk about insufficient budgets and under-spending, MPs raised concerns about teacher accreditation and E-marking.

During its presentation, SACE informed the Committee that their vetting of teachers had been strengthened to prevent usage of fraudulent documents and entry into the profession by individuals who could not be trusted with learners. SACE had also developed a more streamlined approach to educator misconduct and sanctions.

One of the major concerns expressed by MPs that had to be addressed was that there were teachers in the education system that were teaching when they should not be.

CEO of SACE, Rej Brijraj, explained to the Committee that its database needed to be cleaned up and more emphasis was now placed on the background of teachers, and the use of police clearance for both local and foreign teachers to ensure safety for learners.

The DA’s Annette Lovemore found SACE’s performance plan “entirely unacceptable”, while the ANC’s Joyce Basson commented that the presentation was “too brief and was statistically crippled”, so she could not make any comparisons or deductions.

Umalusi’s Budget Review presentation focused on the entity’s core function – quality assurance of qualifications – which was where the budget was most focused. However, the discussion quickly turned to the moderation and marking of exam papers.

The budget for moderation of the marking of three million papers was R24 million in 2012/13 and R34.7 million in 2014/15. The increase was due to increased monitoring around marking process; centralised and on-site moderation; expert markers, as well as external moderation of vocational qualifications and practical examinations.

Following the presentation, Members wondered how Umalusi could improve the marking system, with the DA’s Lovemore suggesting E-marking as an option.

According to the CEO, the Zimbabwe Schools Examination Council (Zimsec) had implemented E-marking, and the advantages of this system of marking were very clear.

Unfortunately, “[the Department of Basic Education] may not find the budget” to implement and distribute the necessary ICT computer systems and hardware for E-marking, added Rakometsi. However, at the beginning of the year, Umalusi and the DBE developed strategies to strengthen marking, and the two strategies would be collated to ensure a better system of marking.

The Department of Basic Education’s Acting Deputy Director-General for Curriculum Implementation and Monitoring, Mathanzima Mweli, remarked that E-marking was important but should not be viewed as a panacea to complex and multifaceted challenges. Indeed it was important, but a basket of interventions had to be implemented properly over a five-year period. E-marking was one intervention. He warned that piecemeal interventions caused “instability in the system” and had to be managed carefully.

He added that competency and assessment of markers and a few other interventions had been identified, and “in principle, DBE was committed to E-marking, but it was a long process and the first step was implementation of a pilot study”. The biggest cost factor was software, maintenance of software, technical support, and accessibility of laptops and computers for every marker.

DA Member, Hildegard Boshoff, commented that she supported Umalusi’s proposal for E-marking for the sake of “eliminating bias and cutting costs”.

Later, Ms Lovemore expressed concern that the “government is failing its students”, as more students who were heading into technical fields were studying maths literacy, instead of general mathematics, which was needed. Many of these learners were now being sent back to study maths. The concern was that learners were not being properly assisted with subject choice, as it was clear that they wanted to work, but failed because they were not being assisted.