Comment from Adv. André Gaum. Minister of Education in the Western Cape, with regard to CTA as reported on in Die Burger, 10 June 2003

We refer to the front-page article in Die Burger of Tuesday, 10 June 2003, with the headline "Eksamen-chaos".

Unfortunately, the article is completely misleading. There is no chaos in our approach to assessment for Grade 9s, nor is there chaos in our approach to introducing the General Education and Training Certificate (GETC) for Grade 9 learners.

We are definitely not awarding the first GET certificates at the end of this year, as reported in Die Burger. I was instrumental in convincing the Council of Education Ministers to delay the implementation of the GETC to ensure that all the necessary preparations are first done.

As far as the GETC is concerned, the national Department of Education has not yet indicated a date for awarding the first certificates, although we understand that they may be introduced for the first time in 2004.

We hope to receive the requirements for the certificate by September this year at the latest. If we have not received these requirements by September, we’ll engage with the national department again on when it would be appropriate to introduce the GETC.

Meanwhile, we are preparing the ground for introducing Common Tasks of Assessment (CTAs) this year.

The function of the CTA is to moderate continuous assessments that are carried out by schools themselves. We need to moderate marks to ensure quality across the education system nationally when we finally introduce the GETC.

The GETC will be a school-leaving certificate, similar to the Junior Certificate, which we discontinued some years ago.

The introduction of the your article refers to "standard examinations" for Grade Nine at the end of this year. You appear to have confused "standard examinations" with the CTAs, which are being set nationally.

We are astounded at your reported claim that school principals are "in the dark" about these assessment tasks.

The approach of the WCED to introducing CTAs has been marked by careful preparation over the past 18 months, in full consultation with our schools.

Early last year, we invited schools to implement the common tasks of assessment for Grade 9 on a voluntary, trial basis. A total of 229 out of 572 high schools took up the challenge. The assessment did not form part of the end-of-year results of Grade 9 learners.

In November last year, we informed schools in Circular 155 of 2002, that we would introduce the CTAs for Grade 9 in all high schools in the Western Cape, and that the assessment would form part of end-of-year results.

We provided examples of the assessments in February this year, in Circular 136 of 2003, and advised schools to use them as a guide for continuous assessment during the year.

The circular said that the department would provide the national CTAs to schools by the end of the third term. We are completely on track to meet this deadline.

In May this year, we reminded schools that continuous assessment would account for 75% of end-of-year marks, and that the CTAs would account for 25%.

We have just issued another circular (122/2003), which provides further details on the timetable for implementing the CTAs at the end of this year.

It is worth noting that we have issued this timetable well before the final matric timetable, which hardly suggests chaos.

Meanwhile, our Education Management and Development Centres in every school district have organised workshops in 2002 on the CTAs for principals and educators involved in teaching Grade 9s. Further workshops had been arranged for 2003.

The CTAs are set nationally. We have no control over their content. However, the way my department has set about implementing them, in full consultation with schools, is a fine example of how to manage this process.

We are fully committed to introducing change in an orderly manner. Change is never easy. However, thanks to the work of my department and our schools, we will be thoroughly prepared for the introduction of the GETC.

We are learning a lot from our trial runs on implementing the CTAs in 2002 and 2003, and we will plough these lessons into our preparations for the introduction of the GETC. We will gladly share our experiences with other provinces as well.

Your report refers to an old issue, namely the transition of Grade 9s to Grade 10. We issued detailed guidelines to schools in October last year on how to manage this transition.

What would have caused chaos would have been if the new FET band (grades 10-12) would have been introduced next year. I pleaded that this be postponed to 2006, and the Council of Education Ministers agreed. Hence the need to have developed transition guidelines.

The report refers to the fact that Grade 9 learners who do not pass at the end of the year may not proceed to FET colleges. The FET band covers grades 10 to 12 in schools, and equivalent levels in FET colleges. It is standard practice that if you fail a standard or grade, you do not proceed to the next stage of your education.

The report also refers to an old issue, namely, what should learners do (in this case, Grade 9s) until the end of the final term after they have completed their examinations. Many schools organise very successful educational programmes or activities during this period, and we look forward to this practice continuing.