Assessment in the further education and training school sector: a quality assurance perspective

[摘要] English: South Africa's performance record in the international arena together with reports ofnational quality assurance bodies released in recent years have highlighted thealarmingly poor results in the educational accomplishments specifically amongstlearners in the further education and training school sector. An analysis of schoollearning achievements compared to national and international benchmarks hasindicated that an improvement in the quality of learning output remains one of thebiggest challenges facing the South African educational system. Finding means toimprove the performance of learners as well as the quality of the education learnersreceive is a major priority for all stakeholders. Despite vigorous attempts of the nationaldepartment (DoE) to develop initiatives and programs aimed at improving learnerachievements, minimal progress has been achieved. Umalusi, the quality assurancebody for Further Education and Training (FET), intends to address this problem as oneof its top priorities.Existing literature indicate that strengthening the assessment practices currentlyemployed could result in improved teaching, learning and assessment whilstsimultaneously enhancing quality assurance in schools. There is a marked variation inperformance of schools throughout the country. An attempt was therefore made toidentify constraints leading to the different performance levels of schools. Schools forthe research were selected from different categories: good, average and low performingschools based on the performance of their 2009 grade 12 results.The goal this study pursued was to provide a theoretical underpinning of assessment atschool level from a quality assurance perspective. Information assimilated fromcontemporary literature, was utilised to develop a questionnaire with the aim toinvestigate teachers' awareness of quality assurance measures that should beimplemented during assessment practices in schools. Additionally, it aimed to determinewhether teachers assess learners in totality and also to investigate the extent of qualityassurance measures being employed. A qualitative study was also conducted tostrengthen the quantitative findings. Results indicated that various constraints impeding the implementation and application of quality assurance were present and that theseconstraints affected the performances of the learner. This was made evident in the dataanalysis where teachers of the different school groupings were compared in respect oftheir awareness and understanding of assessment and quality assurance measures.Findings of what were considered good assessment practices in the study werecompared with those in the existing literature review which enabled the researchers tomake recommendations pertaining to the improvement of assessment practices andenhancement of quality assurance.

[发布机构] University of the Free State