How should we judge the SC results of 2007?

Background

In 2004 Umalusi undertook an investigation into the quality of the Senior Certificate (SC) exam papers, comparing the cognitive demands of current papers in the six subjects examined nationally with those of the previous five years. The study concluded that the rising pass rates in the years 1999-2004 were largely due to declining standards and the over-generous adjustment of raw scores during the moderation process. Umalusi, in conjunction with the Department of Education (DOE), immediately embarked on a systematic strategy to raise the standards of papers. Thus, question papers began to demand more extended argument and analysis on the part of candidates, at the expense of short, multiple choice items which concentrated on the simple recall of facts. This step is directed toward better equipping matriculants for the increasingly sophisticated demands of the knowledge economy.

At the same time, Umalusi instituted tighter control over the moderation process, the primary focus of which is to ensure that the candidates of each cohort are judged according to the same measures as their predecessors. Moderation is undertaken by a Statistics Committee appointed by Umalusi and consisting of a group of experts which is independent of the DOE. Raw scores for each subject may be adjusted up or down by a maximum of 10%, depending largely on whether this year’s paper in a particular subject is judged to be more or less difficult than last year’s. In reality, the majority of raw scores are unadjusted, and where adjustment does occur it very rarely exceeds 5%.

Alongside these efforts to raise the standard of the exam, the DOE has embarked on a process of improving the flow-through rate of children through the schooling system. South Africa already enjoys relatively high participation rates, with around 90% of all children passing primary school and about 60% of the total age cohort reaching Grade 12. The latter figure continues to rise, with a further increase of nearly 7% of candidates writing the SC exam in 2007, compared with the number entered in 2006.

Driven by the country’s chronic skills shortage, a third imperative in recent years has been the effort to improve the numbers of matriculants who qualify to study science related subjects at tertiary level. Success in this area is measured by the numbers of university exemptions and passes in higher grade (HG) mathematics and science.

How should we judge the SC results of 2007?

Analyzing the success of the 2007 SC class is clearly a complex matter that cannot be summarized by a single indicator. We need to take account of three main factors:

• the standard of the exam papers, as indicated by the proportion of questions which demand higher order cognitive skills;
• the numbers of candidates passing;
• the quality of the passes, as measured by the numbers of exemptions, and passes in mathematics and science, particularly at the higher grade.

Against these indicators, the pass rate is of secondary interest. While it is obviously preferable to have a high pass rate – indicating the efficiency with which the system converts registered candidates into passes – small changes in this indicator off the relatively high base which pertains at present is of little consequence, as long as the other three measures are increasing or holding steady. Unfortunately, the pass rate has become fixed in the public eye as the single measure of quality, and this distracts the focus away from a more insightful view of the health of the SC system.

Standards

The presence of large numbers of matriculants without jobs, in the face of severe skill shortages in every sphere of the economy, is the result of two factors. On one hand there are simply not enough school leavers with either technical skills or good academic capabilities. This situation is behind government’s push to upgrade the FET colleges and to encourage more children to enter the colleges. The second problem concerns the standard of the SC exam, which, for the majority of matriculants at the lower end of the scale, demands far too little in terms of literacy and numeracy proficiency. It is imperative that the school system develops these basic skills, which provide the foundation for the efficient performance of any job and for all further learning – technical and academic. This is behind government’s push to improve the standards of the SC exam, a process which will be accelerated when the new FET curriculum is examined for the first time in 2009.

Numbers passing

Both the numbers of candidates and the number obtaining SC certificates have increased significantly over the last four years.

This is a solid achievement on the part of government, ensuring that more children enter the labour market each year with the minimum qualification required for white collar jobs in both the public and private sectors.

Quality of passes

Regarding the quality of passes, the achievement of 2007 is more mixed. While the numbers of exemptions and HG science passes are down, there is an increase in both HG and SG maths numbers and SG science.

2007 saw large increases in the number of SG passes in both maths and science; it is possible that many of these candidates are capable of passing at the HG, and it would seem that the DOE’s efforts in trying to persuade schools to shift more candidates from SG to HG are not yet bearing as much fruit as had been hoped.

Pass rate

As we have argued above, the downward drift in the pass rate from 66.5% in 2006 to 65.2% in 2007 is of little consequence when viewed against the more important goals of improving standards, and the number and quality of passes.

Conclusion

Since 2004, in sharp contrast to the one-dimensional approach adopted before that, the DOE has taken a wholistic approach to improving the SC results. Thus, it is simultaneously aiming to improve standards, quantity and quality. This is a tall order: it stands to reason, for example, that if the exam papers are increasing in difficulty then fewer candidates are likely to pass. This is exactly what happened in 2006, when, although the numbers of passes increased, there was a small but distinct decline in the quality of these passes, with fewer distinctions and maths and science passes. However, it would seem that by 2007 the system had begun to adapt to the higher standards, and had begun to show improvements in some of the quality indicators, while maintaining a strong growth in numbers. On the back of a debilitating teacher strike, these results give cause for some optimism.