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Schools across the country ended their 2015 academic year this week, and most pupils went off on their holidays without having sat for the government’s mandatory Annual National Assessments (ANAs).
Even though Basic Education Minister Angie Motshekga unilaterally ordered all schools to administer the ANAs, hardly any appear to have done so. And teachers, across the board, continue to decry this latest project by the department as a complete waste of time and money. And they are right.
As this column pointed out nearly three months ago, the department admitted that the ANA tests were “flawed”. They would be amended next year but, in the meantime, they should be administered.
The combined teacher unions pointed out that this made no sense: if the tests were flawed, they would be useless. So why make pupils and teachers go through a process that is, in essence, meaningless?
The only vague response from the department was that the tests had “already been paid for”, that money should not be wasted. “We couldn’t agree more,” chorus increasingly angry teachers, who note that money splurged on flawed tests is wasted public money.
“All we have seen over the past week has been public relations management,” says Mugwena Maluleke, general secretary of the SA Democratic Teachers’ Union.
He points out that, in many cases, government knowingly set dates for the ANAs for specific grades when it was known that those grades had already completed the school year.
In such cases, the tests, drawn up and paid for, were still made available – even if there was no way they could be administered.
“What we have here is an apparent commitment to pay out for tenders,” says a senior union official.
Union leaders such as Basil Manuel of the National Professional Teachers’ Organisation of SA point out that teacher unions were involved three months ago in trying to discuss a sensible resolution to the ANA problem.
All five unions were involved, along with the minister and her department in a process mediated by lawyer Charles Nupen.
Manuel says: “We were not opposed to testing, as such, but wanted a proper diagnostic process, and we thought we were making progress. But then the minister simply sent a message to Nupen saying the tests were going ahead.”
It was Nupen who had to inform the unions. So why should the minister be so determined to go ahead with these tests when it is obvious that they are not only flawed, but that the results can be manipulated? As the unions pointed out, part of the reason for such tests is to establish “league tables”, showing which schools are providing the “best-quality education” as measured by the tests.
“So teachers are under pressure to ensure the best possible marks,” says Manuel.
This seems to be the action of a basic education department desperate to show, despite all available evidence to the contrary, that the state’s education policies are working.
As such, the ANA charade has little to do with education and much to do with burnishing government’s image before next year’s elections. Unfortunately, the losers are the pupils.
