Publications
Partners
The department of basic education has come out guns blazing after being accused of attempting to dilute the autonomy of a research unit that was set up to independently evaluate schools.
Yesterday, the department released a statement in response to claims by the Democratic Alliance that the research unit was “becoming just another government department”, saying the claims were “absurd and unfounded”.
The National Education Evaluation and Development Unit was set up in 2009 to analyse the state of schools, particularly the status of teaching and learning.
The DA raised concerns earlier this week regarding a damning internal email from the unit’s acting chief executive Sibusiso Sithole to staff, dated September 1. The email revealed a supposedly less than independent relationship between the unit and the department.
READ: Angie Motshekga accused of curtailing research unit’s autonomy
The DA’s Gavin Davis said that the unit was set up to “scrutinise our education system without fear or favour”, and its website spelled out that it acted independently “of the civil service responsible for the administration of schools”.
Davis was concerned that the unit which was “supposed to be a statutory body, is becoming just another government department”.
Referring to the leaked email, the department said that the email was viewed “in complete isolation from all other developments that had taken place in the process of the unit conducting its business.”
The department said Davis’ claims were “ill-informed” and that the unit’s acting chief executive had personally addressed the concerns. Sithole said that the unit was accountable to the Basic Education Minister Angie Motshekga for the performance of its functions.
In keeping with these provisions, the unit had met with the minister on July 11 to deal with two issues. The first was to brief the minister on the work of the Unit in the first five-year cycle of systemic evaluations (2012-2016) and the second was to present the plan for the second five-year cycle (2017-2021). Sithole said that subsequent to the briefing with the minister, the unit was asked by the minister to “conduct deeper investigations on the areas that continue to cause concern in the system” and that the directive was in line with the National Education Evaluation and Development Unit Bill and the Regulations for the Establishment of the Office of Standards and Compliance for Basic Education, both founding documents. Within the same briefing, the unit requested that the minister indicate which areas were to be focused on as a result of financial constraints. “I was referring to these areas in my communiqué with the unit’s team when I was talking about having ‘received a response to our submission from senior management about what they think we mist prioritise in our work’,” Sithole said.Sithole said that the “close” relationship which the minister was talking about has been envisaged in all the unit’s founding documents. According to Sithole the delay of the 2014 report was caused by two main factors:1) Financial constraints meant that data analysis had to be done in-house by two staff members.2) The collection of additional data took longer than anticipated because the team had to split into two groups. Sithole said that the unit continued to have an important role and function to facilitate school improvement through systemic evaluation. “The unit would do this through the establishment of a countrywide credible, sustainable and holistic performance review system which focuses systemically on the state of teaching and learning in classrooms, and on the monitoring, administration and support functions at school, provincial and national levels,” Sithole said.
