Edited by Vijay Reddy COLLOQUIUM PROCEEDINGS Free download from www.hsrcpress.ac.za Published by HSRC Press Private Bag X9182, Cape Town, 8000, South Africa www.hsrcpress.ac.za © 2006 Human Sciences Research Council First published 2006 All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. ISBN 0-7969-2116-4 Copy editing by Angela Briggs Typeset by Stacey Gibson Cover design by Farm Design Print management by comPress Distributed in Africa by Blue Weaver PO Box 30370, Tokai, Cape Town, 7966, South Africa Tel: +27 (0) 21 701 4477 Fax: +27 (0) 21 701 7302 email: orders@blueweaver.co.za www.oneworldbooks.com Distributed in Europe and the United Kingdom by Eurospan Distribution Services (EDS) 3 Henrietta Street, Covent Garden, London, WC2E 8LU, United Kingdom Tel: +44 (0) 20 7240 0856 Fax: +44 (0) 20 7379 0609 email: orders@edspubs.co.uk www.eurospanonline.com Distributed in North America by Independent Publishers Group (IPG) Order Department, 814 North Franklin Street, Chicago, IL 60610, USA Call toll-free: (800) 888 4741 All other enquiries: +1 (312) 337 0747 Fax: +1 (312) 337 5985 email: frontdesk@ipgbook.com www.ipgbook.com Free download from www.hsrcpress.ac.za 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 Free download from www.hsrcpress.ac.za 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 Free download from www.hsrcpress.ac.za 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 Free download from www.hsrcpress.ac.za MARKING MATRIC: COLLOQUIUM PROCEEDINGS vi 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 Free download from www.hsrcpress.ac.za 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 Free download from www.hsrcpress.ac.za 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 Free download from www.hsrcpress.ac.za 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 Free download from www.hsrcpress.ac.za 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 Free download from www.hsrcpress.ac.za [...]... 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,... did not collect matriculation data by race However, it was acknowledged that race was still an important factor in describing inequalities and, from 2002, learners writing the matriculation examination identified themselves by race Perry and Fleisch present the result of an in-depth study of female education achievement in the South African SCE Kahn explores disparities of performance in matric Mathematics... Surveys, Analyses, Modelling and Mapping (SAMM) We also knew that a number of researchers were already working on various aspects related to the matric examination We saw it as timely to bring the work together through a colloquium And so the project Marking Matric was born In this acknowledgement I need to thank various people for participating in discussions, supporting the idea and seeing the completion... 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... relating to assessment, particularly the matriculation examination The papers (insider accounts by Ndhlovu, Sishi and Nuga Deliwe, and by Naidoo) describe and review the different phases of the assessment reform, particularly the SCE, in the last ten years, and present a history of examinations in this country Lolwana provides an historical account of how the question of matriculation standards has been treated... systems The process of the statistical adjustment of marks has been ‘blamed’ for the increase in the pass rates of the matriculation examination Fatti, who chairs the Statistics Task Team of Umalusi, describes the statistical adjustment process which is used for the standardisation of the matric mark distributions Included in his paper is a description of the motivation and history for statistical adjustment... statistical adjustment took place in the matriculation examination of 2003 Kanjee problematises, from a methodological point of view, the comparability of learner performance across different years and across the provinces In other words, is there any equivalence and basis for comparability of the different examinations? Kanjee concludes by providing a proposal by which the matriculation examination can both... optimally The predictive value of the matriculation examination for admission to Higher Education (HE) institutions continues to be one of the ‘hotly debated’ topics amongst academics and government officials Foxcroft uses data gathered from first-year intakes over the past few years to illustrate some of the current measurement deficiencies when admission is based on the matriculation examination results... results She also provides suggestions of how the FETC examinations could avoid some of the measurement pitfalls inherent in the matriculation examination, so that these results could have better usage for admission to HE institutions Four empirically based papers disaggregate the matriculation achievement data by race and gender to illustrate the inequalities of learner performance, which in turn is linked... 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 . adopted the Matric Project as an institution-wide project, supported from the office of the Free download from www.hsrcpress.ac.za MARKING MATRIC: COLLOQUIUM. aspects related to the matric examination. We saw it as timely to bring the work together through a colloquium. And so the project Marking Matric was born.