Tài liệu Marking Matric pptx

Edited by Vijay Reddy

COLLOQUIUM PROCEEDINGS

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Published by HSRC Press

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© 2006 Human Sciences Research Council

First published 2006

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Contents

List of tables and figures v

Foreword ix

Introduction xii

Acknowledgements xx

List of abbreviations and acronyms xxi

SECTION 1: THE MACRO PERSPECTIVE

1. A review of ten years of assessment and examinations 3

Themba Ndhlovu, Nkosi Sishi and Carol Nuga Deliwe

2. Transition from Senior Certificate to the Further Education and

Training Certificate 10

Morgan Naidoo

3. The history of falling matric standards 18

Peliwe Lolwana

SECTION 2: STANDARDS AND STANDARDISATION

4. The matriculation examination: how can we find out if standards

are falling? 33

Mbithi wa Kivilu

5. The statistical adjustment of matric marks 45

L Paul Fatti

6. Evaluating the school-leaving examination against measurement

principles and methods 58

Cheryl D Foxcroft

7. Comparing and standardising performance trends in the matric

examinations using a matrix sampling design 72

Anil Kanjee

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8. Methodological issues in measuring learner flow-through in the

education system 90

Fabian Arends

SECTION 3: DISAGGREGATED DATA ILLUSTRATING INEQUALITIES

9. Gender and educational achievement in South Africa 107

Helen Perry and Brahm Fleisch

10. Matric matters 127

Michael Kahn

11. A trend analysis of matric maths performance 139

Vijay Reddy and Servaas van der Berg with Likani Lebani and

Robert Berkowitz

12. The matric results of 2002 and 2003: the uncomfortable truths of the

Western Cape? 161

Peter Kallaway

SECTION 4: ISSUES IMPACTING ON EDUCATION

13. Learning (dis)advantage in matriculation language classrooms 185

Jeanne Prinsloo

14. Many are called, few will remain: HIV/AIDS and the matric in the South

African school system 201

Relebohile Moletsane

15. Listening to matric teachers: township realities and learner

achievement levels 213

Makola Collin Phurutse

16. Matric improvement programmes 228

Jennifer Rault-Smith

SECTION 5: THE FUTURE

17. The Further Education and Training Certificate: unresolved problems 241

Stephanie Matseleng Allais

18. Pathways from matric 253

Michael Cosser

Contributors 263

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v

List of tables and figures

Tables

Table 2.1 Number of candidates who wrote, those who passed and those

who passed with exemption from 1996 to 2003 13

Table 5.1 Flow-through rates for Grades 11 and 12 47

Table 5.2 Number of candidates presenting for Standard Grade and

Higher Grade examinations 48

Table 5.3 Accounting Higher Grade mark distributions and adjustments 51

Table 5.4 English Second Language Higher Grade marks and

adjustments 53

Table 5.5 Numbers and pass rates, 1990 to 2003 56

Table 6.1 Correlations: final first-year marks, Swedish Points, and

weighted matriculation average mark 60

Table 6.2 Matric and academic performance: correlations for gender and

cultural groups 63

Table 6.3 Score equivalence across examinations 67

Table 6.4 Example of score equating table 67

Table 7.1 Matric pass rates: 1997 to 2003 79

Table 8.1 Promotion, repetition and drop-out rates in public ordinary

schools in Gauteng, Western Cape and KwaZulu-Natal, 2002 98

Table 9.1 Number of candidates, passes and endorsements and Gender

Parity Index (GPI), 1996 to 2002 112

Table 9.2 Number of candidates gaining merit and distinction by gender,

2001 and 2002 114

Table 9.3 Number of candidates and aggregate mark obtained by

candidates who failed and who passed, with and without

endorsement, 2002 115

Table 9.4 Female and male candidates’ aggregate marks by percentile,

2002 116

Table 9.5 Provincial number of candidates and aggregate mark obtained

by candidates who failed and who passed with and without

endorsement, 2002 118

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MARKING MATRIC: COLLOQUIUM PROCEEDINGS

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Table 9.6 Number of candidates and aggregate mark obtained by those

who failed and passed with or without endorsement, by race,

2002 119

Table 9.7 Number of Mathematics candidates and passes, average annual

growth and pass rates by gender, 1996 and 2002 121

Table 9.8 Number of Physical Science candidates and passes, average

annual growth and pass rates by gender, 1996 and 2002 122

Table 9.9 Higher Grade Mathematics candidates, number and percentage

passing by race and gender, 2002 123

Table 9.10 Higher Grade Physical Science candidates, number passing and

percentage pass rate by race and gender, 2002 123

Table 10. 1 Mathematics and Physical Science performance by group,

1991 127

Table 10.2 Mathematics HG enrolment (000s) and performance: All and

Language Proxy Method, 1999 to 2001 131

Table 10.3 Mathematics Language Proxy Method, by gender and

province 131

Table 10.4 Mathematics Higher Grade African candidates 2002 and

2003 132

Table 10.5 Mathematics Higher Grade for Language Proxy Method, non￾language African and African, by province (2003) 132

Table 10.6 Passes in bands A to C, African candidates, 2002 and 2003 135

Table 11.1 Modified Swedish system 142

Table 11.2 Public schools offering Maths at matric level, in 2003 in

Gauteng and Free State, by former racial departments and

poverty rankings 143

Table 11.3 Maths participation in public schools offering Maths in

Gauteng and Free State 144

Table 11.4 Higher Grade Maths participation in Gauteng and Free

State 145

Table 11.5 Schools offering only Standard Grade Maths in Gauteng and

Free State 146

Table 11.6 Number of Higher Grade Maths A, B, C and D symbols in

Gauteng and Free State for the years 1998, 2001 and 2003 147

Table 11.7 Classification of Gauteng and Free State schools in terms of

performance regarding university Maths eligibility 153

MARKING MATRIC: COLLOQUIUM PROCEEDINGS

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INTRODUCTION

vii

Table 11.8 Performance regarding university Maths eligibility by school

classification, 1998, 2001 and 2003 154

Table 11.9 Categorising Dinaledi schools in Gauteng and Free State, 1998

to 2003 156

Table 11.10 Dinaledi schools in Gauteng and Free State: Performance in

terms of university eligibility for Maths 156

Table 12.1 National Senor Certificate pass rates: 1994 to 2003 161

Table 12.2 Western Cape Senior Certificate examination results 2001:

type of pass 167

Table 12.3 Senior Certificate results for 2002 to 2003: prestige Cape Town

and Stellenbosch schools 169

Table 12.4 Senior Certificate results for 2002 and 2003: Cape Town

suburban schools 172

Table 12.5 Senior Certificate results for 2002 and 2003: working-class

schools in coloured and African areas in the vicinity of

Cape Town 174

Table 12.6 Senior Certificate results for 2002 and 2003: rural town

(Malmesbury) 176

Table 16.1 Selection of schools with pass rates of under 40 per cent in

1998 235

Table 18.1 2002 study and work status of learners who were in Grade 12

in 2001 255

Table 18.2 2002 majority-time occupation of learners who were in Grade 12

in 2001 256

Figures

Figure 5.1 Ogives for Accounting Higher Grade 52

Figure 5.2 Ogives for English Second Language Higher Grade 54

Figure 6.1 Impact of using revised criteria based on matriculation

performance 61

Figure 6.2 Risk profiles of directly and tested admitted learners 64

Figure 6.3 Percentages per risk profile of directly and tested admitted

learners 65

Figure 6.4 Weighted matriculation average mark means: 1999 to 2003

examinations 66

LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES

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viii

Figure 7.1 National trend in matric pass rates and endorsements: 1997 to

2003 80

Figure 7.2 Comparisons that account for changes implemented from

2001 81

Figure 7.3 Comparison of total, Maths and Science pass rates: 1997

to 2002 81

Figure 7.4 Matrix sampling: Common anchor item design 84

Figure 8.1 Movement of learners into and out of school 96

Figure 8.2 Basic assumptions of the Grade Transition Model 97

Figure 8.3 Flow of pupils from Grade 1 in 1991 to Grade 12 in 2002 99

Figure 9.1 Number of male and female learners by grade, 2000 110

Figure 9.2 Male and female enrolment in the SCE, 1996 to 2002 111

Figure 9.3 Gender pass rates and endorsement rates,1996 to 2002 113

Figure 9.4 Provincial average aggregate for female and male candidates

passing and candidates gaining an exemption, 2002 117

Figure 11.1 Maths school quality index, for Gauteng in 2003, by former

department 148

Figure 11.2 Maths school quality index, for Free State in 2003, by former

department 149

Figure 11.3 Change in school quality index over time (1999, 2003) for

Gauteng ex-DET and ex-HoA schools 150

Figure 11.4 Change in school quality index over time (1999, 2003) for Free

State ex-DET and ex-HoA schools 151

Figure 16.1 Biggs’ SOLO Taxonomy: A general framework for systematically

assessing quality of learner learning 237

Figure 18.1 The effect of subject achievement on learner destination,

2002 258

MARKING MATRIC: COLLOQUIUM PROCEEDINGS

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ix

Foreword

It has long been persuasively demonstrated that the ways in which schooling is

provided in society generally have the effect of reproducing social inequality,

in the course of meeting the differentiated conditions of employment and

reward that obtain under capitalist production. This process tends to occur in

unexpected ways even where a progressive government might seek to achieve

otherwise. In South Africa under apartheid, the white-minority government

deliberately and cynically steered the process by means of the racially

segregated and inferior Bantu Education system, to achieve and regulate the

selective underdevelopment of black learners throughout the country, and

especially in rural, so-called ‘homeland’ areas.

Following the political demise of apartheid in 1994, the new ANC-led black￾majority government, the business sector, civil society, academia and the

public are agreed in attempting to undo the damage and reverse the process.

Concerted investment in education is seen as critical for the equitable and

sustainable socio-economic development of the country. It is intended to

achieve increased access to education opportunities across previous barriers

of race, class and region; improved quality in the provision of education;

and thereby better retention of learners in the educational system and better

output standards and volumes.

Whether in the popular awareness of learners and their parents, the

conceptions of educators and educational specialists, or the interventions of

policy-makers, a key indicator of the functioning and consequent outcomes

of the schooling system has been the performance of learners in the exit

level examination at the end of Grade 12, the matriculation examination.

There are understandable reasons for this. At the level of the individual

learner, performance in the examination will powerfully affect his or her

opportunities for further education or entry into the labour market. At the

level of the schooling system the overall matric results, and the differences by

province, subject, and race group, provide telling and sometimes controversial

evidence of differences in the efficacy of provision. At the national level the

results are an annual reflection of whether government is making headway in

its dual educational agenda of improving equity in educational opportunities

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MARKING MATRIC: COLLOQUIUM PROCEEDINGS

x

and outcomes at the same time as producing the necessary levels and mixes

of skills needed by the economy in order to improve employment and

productivity and reduce poverty.

So, as the Introduction notes, the stakes can hardly be higher. As a result, there

have been fierce – if sporadic – debates in the public domain in recent years

about the meaning of the matric pass rates, the predictive power of the matric

results for admission to higher education, and the processes underlying

the evident changes. At the same time, there is still uncertainty about the

purpose of the exit level examination: is it a certificate which indicates what a

learner knows and can do; should it be used for admission to tertiary studies;

and does it predict future performance? The multilevel debates are often

collapsed into simplistic issues. Then confidence in the education system,

or lack of it, is projected onto the exit examination. For instance, the higher

education community has announced that from 2008 it will administer its

own admission test.

This constellation of analyses and implications, and the complicated

educational and social processes they involve, may be called ‘the matric

question’. The question is obviously one of continuing public and specialist

interest; yet attention to it has tended to flare up only briefly when each

year’s results are published, and then subside until the next year. In 2004 the

HSRC accordingly decided to remedy this deficiency and make ‘the matric’

one of two HSRC-wide projects for the 2004/2005 year. An initial thrust of

the project was to convene a broad range of informed stakeholders – located

in government, science councils, statutory bodies and academia – for a

colloquium on the major aspects of the question. The HSRC appreciates their

ready and vigorous engagement. Their contributions comprise the remainder

of this volume, and there is an overview in the Introduction.

The macro-trends in the education system over recent years provide a mixed

background to the more detailed and technical analyses. On the one hand

there have been real improvements in important prerequisites of improved

provision and output, such as the qualifications of teachers, teacher : pupil

ratios, infrastructure, and management. These have been achieved at the same

time as greatly improved access across the race groups, and diminished overall

inequality between urban and rural areas and among the nine provinces. On

the other hand, the focus in recent years on improving the matric pass-rate,

without an adequate specifying and monitoring of cognate targets, has had

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xi

some unintended and undesirable consequences, such as schools preventing

marginal pupils from attempting matric; or pressuring them to be examined

at the standard rather than the higher grade, thereby jeopardising their access

to higher education and constricting the supply of strategic skills such as

Higher Grade Mathematics.

Overall, it turns out that the gap of performance between schools that were

previously advantaged and those that were disadvantaged, although showing

some improvements, still remains distressingly wide; and while the former

House of Administration (white) schools are increasingly racially mixed,

the former Department of Education and Training (DET) schools remain

predominantly black, and especially African. The implication of this difference

is that the learners exiting from the two types of schools still have, in the

aggregate, predictably different subsequent life chances and trajectories.

At this time South Africa is moving towards the introduction of a new exit

examination. It is therefore an ideal moment to take stock of what occurred

under the matric dispensation, and why in order to derive what can be

learned towards ensuring that the new arrangements are more effective in

countering the unintended contrary developments noted above, thereby

exerting a beneficial influence on the ability of the education system to meet

dynamic societal requirements. That is the underlying focus of this collection

of the contributions to the HSRC’s colloquium on ‘the matric question’.

The five sections of the book interrogate the nature of assessment that the

matric involves, the standards entailed, the challenges of measurement and

adjustment, the consequences in our specific context, and possible future

scenarios for the new approach. The HSRC hopes in this way to continue to

advance its mandate of both undertaking and fostering social science that

makes a difference, in the important educational domain.

Dr FM Orkin

CEO, HSRC

July 2005

FOREWORD

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xii

Introduction

Vijay Reddy

In the previous ten years, there have been many changes in South African

education: the creation of a single Department of Education (DoE); common

Grade 12 examinations for learners in public schools; and a new outcomes￾based curriculum which was introduced to learners in the General Education

and Training (GET) phase in 1998 and will be introduced to learners in the

Further Education and Training (FET) phase from 2006. The South African

public, politicians, policy-makers and researchers still use learner achievement

in the various learning areas as the indicator of the success of these changes.

South Africa has participated in cross-national comparative studies in

Mathematics, Science, Literacy and Life Skills. Some of these studies are the

‘Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study’ (TIMSS) at Grade 8

level; the ‘Monitoring Learning Achievement’ (MLA) study at Grade 4 level;

and the study by the Southern African Consortium for Monitoring Educational

Quality (SACMEQ) at Grade 6 level. The National Education Policy Act of

1996 stipulates monitoring and evaluation of the education system, and

in 2001 Grade 3 learners were tested in Numeracy, Literacy and Life Skills.

In 2004 Grade 6 learners were tested in Mathematics, Science and Literacy.

Provincial Departments of Education have also conducted assessment studies.

Despite the many achievement studies and performance in these assessments,

the Grade 12 exit level qualification – the matriculation examination –

still captures the imagination of policy-makers, politicians, academics and

the public.

The matriculation examination is a visible, high profile and public indicator

of learner achievement. Every year parents, learners, teachers, researchers,

government officials, policy-makers, and the general public get involved in

the debate around the matriculation examination, with the most frequently

asked questions being: Did the pass rate go up? Are standards dropping? Are

the results real or have they been manipulated? How is our education system

doing? Are we meeting the development goals? And the new question is: What

should the matriculation examination of the future look like?

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xiii

The matriculation examination is a ‘high stakes’ examination. At the level of

the learner (and the parent) the certificate gained in the examination will play

a major role in determining the subsequent life trajectory of the individual.

The learner is interested in the symbols (or marks) reflected on the certificate.

For schools and teachers the results are considered as a reflection of the

outcome of both the professional and learner inputs. At a systemic level, the

results are seen as a reflection of the health of the provincial and national

education system.

In 1996 the first non-ethnic, provincially based Senior Certificate

Examinations (SCE) were written. In the early years the debates in the

newspapers were about examination paper leakages and cheating during

the examination. The initial challenge for the DoE was to ensure smooth

operational and administrative arrangements. The 1999 SCE recorded the

lowest pass rate, at 49 per cent. As a consequence, there were many intervention

strategies in schools (especially poorly performing schools) and a call from

the then Minister of Education, Kader Asmal, for a 5 per cent increase in pass

rates in the following years. From the year 2000 onwards, there has been an

increase in Senior Certificate pass rates, with the highest pass rate, of 73 per

cent, recorded in 2003. More recent debates in the public domain have been

about the quality of the pass rates and whether the increased pass rate in the

SCE is an indication of improvement in the quality of the system or whether it

was manipulated, either by holding back learners in Grade 11 or encouraging

more learners to take standard grade subjects.

Analysis of two sets of statistics provided by the DoE reveal the following

trends in the education system. Firstly, in 1996 and 1997 the percentage

flowthrough from Grade 11 to Grade 12 was 85 per cent and 89 per cent

respectively. More recently however, this has dropped and in 2001 and 2002,

the percentage flowthrough from Grade 11 to Grade 12 was 73 per cent and

77 per cent respectively. Secondly, in 1991 there were 408 468 Senior

Certificate candidates in the public school system, and although this number

increased to 559 233 in 1997, it dropped to 440 267 in 2003. In the same

period the total number of Mathematics candidates increased from 135 659

in 1991 to 231 312 in 1997 and to 258 323 in 2003. This increased participation

rate in Mathematics is to be commended. However, there is concern

when we analyse the number of Mathematics Higher Grade (HG) candidates

– in 1991 there were 53 631 Mathematics HG candidates (constituting

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MARKING MATRIC: COLLOQUIUM PROCEEDINGS

xiv

40 per cent of all Mathematics candidates and 13 per cent of the total number

of Senior Certificate candidates); in 1997 there were 67 744 Mathematics

HG candidates (constituting 30 per cent of all Mathematics candidates and

12 per cent of Senior Certificate candidates) and in 2003 this number dropped

to 35 959 candidates (constituting 14 per cent of all Mathematics candidates

and 8 per cent of all Senior Certificate candidates). Thus, while Mathematics

participation has increased, the number of learners who will constitute the

pool for entry into key professions is very limited.

The matriculation examination in the form that we know it is on the way out.

The last Senior Certificate examination in its present form will be written at

the end of 2007. From 2006, Grade 10 learners will follow the new curriculum

(National Curriculum Statements for Grades 10 to 12), which is underpinned

by the Outcomes Based Education (OBE) philosophy. The Grade 12 cohort

of 2008 will write an external examination and learners will graduate from

Grade 12 with the Further Education and Training Certificate (FETC) (there

has been an amendment to this – see last paragraph).

In writing this introduction after reading the papers in this collection, policy

documents and academic analyses relating to assessment, I am struck by

three trends:

• Firstly, the importance of history, and a reminder that the debates are

not new; they have surfaced in different forms at different times (but

does history teach us anything?). There has always been debate and

contestation around assessment and examination. The difference may be

that now the debate also happens in the public domain and the form and

tone of these debates influence public perceptions of, and confidence in

the examination and education system.

• Secondly, the assessment issues debated in South Africa – standards,

validity, centralisation or decentralisation, predictive value – are not

unique to this time period or to this country. For example, there has

been analysis by Mitchell, Fridjhon and Haupt (1997) and Zietsman and

Gering (1986) on the predictive value of matriculation examinations for

university admission since the 1980s. This debate has continued with

the tertiary institutions proposing the National Benchmark Tests Project

as a norm for admission to higher education.1

The tension between

examinations marking an exit from the schooling system and entry into

university occurs in many countries. Bakker and Wolf, in an editorial in

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INTRODUCTION

xv

Assessment in Education, write that ‘the political visibility and sensitivity

associated with upper-secondary examining has been increasing

everywhere’ (2001: 286).

• Thirdly, our progress seems to follow a circular route – things seem

to change and then we come back to where we started. The pass rate

in the 1996 SCE was 54 per cent. In 1997 the pass rate dropped to

47 per cent. This prompted a national outcry from several sectors of the

South African community. ‘The nation began to question the quality

of schooling and the examination process.’2

In 2003 the pass rate was

73 per cent – the nation questioned the quality and integrity of the

examinations process. One can examine these changes in relation to the

trends in higher grade and standard grade participation. The Ministerial

Committee that investigated the poor examination results of the 1997

SCE examined the issue of higher and standard grade. There were two

points of view of this subject. On the one hand there was the feeling

that, with the high failure rate in subjects like Mathematics HG, learners

should take Standard Grade (SG) Mathematics. On the other hand there

was the feeling that the learners’ inability to perform is caused by some

failure of the system and that there should be improvements in teacher

preparation, support materials, and the culture of learning and teaching.

The Umalusi report (2004) that investigated these changes suggested that

one of the reasons for the change in pass rates is the increasing number

of learners taking the subject on the standard grade, and the fact that it

is not clear what level of competence should be displayed by learners.

The debates after the release of the 2003 examination concluded that

many learners had been encouraged to take Mathematics (and other

subjects) on the standard grade and this had led to a false reflection of

the quality of the education system. Furthermore, the fact that very few

learners are taking Mathematics HG means that the human resource

capability is compromised. The key challenge now is to increase the

number of learners taking Mathematics HG (and in the new curriculum

ensuring that more learners take the subject Mathematics rather than

Mathematical Literacy).

The debate about exit level examinations is in the public domain. To deepen

this discussion the Human Sciences Research Council (HSRC) adopted the

Matric Project as an institution-wide project, supported from the office of the

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