December 2015 - Umalusi

1 37 General Van Ryneveld Street, Persequor Technopark, PretoriaTelephone: +27 12 349 1510 Fax: +27 12 349 1511E-mail: Web: | @UmalusiSADecember 2015 Quality Assurance of the 2015 National Senior Certi cate (NSC) Examinations and Assessment of the South African Comprehensive Assessment Institute (SACAI)37 General Van Ryneveld Street, Persequor Technopark, PretoriaTelephone: 27 12 349 1510 Fax: 27 12 349 1511 ASSURANCE OF THE 2015 NATIONAL SENIOR CERTIFICATE (NSC) EXAMINATIONS AND ASSESSMENT OF THE SOUTH AFRICAN COMPREHENSIVE ASSESSMENT INSTITUTE (SACAI) December 2015iiiCOPYRIGHT 2015 Umalusi COUNCIL FOR QUALITY ASSURANCE IN GENERAL AND FURTHER EDUCATION AND TRAINING ALL RIGHTS RESERVEDW hile all reasonable steps have been taken to ensure the accuracy and integrity of the information contained herein, Umalusi accepts no liability or responsibility whatsoever should the information, for whatever reason, be found to be incorrect.

2 Umalusi also reserves the right to amend any incorrect informationTable of ContentsiiiExecutive SummaryAbbreviations List of Tables and FiguresCHAPTER 1 Moderation of Question Introduction and Scope and Summary of Areas of Good Areas of Directives for Compliance and Conclusion CHAPTER 2 Moderation of School Based Introduction and Scope and Summary of Areas of Good Areas of Directives for Compliance and Conclusion CHAPTER 3 Monitoring the State of Readiness Introduction and Scope and Summary of Areas of Good Areas of Directives for Compliance and ConclusionCHAPTER 4 Monitoring of Introduction and Scope and Summary of Areas of Good Areas of Directives for Compliance and Conclusionvixx11131111111213131315171718 1819191920252525252626262630303031ivCHAP TER 5 Monitoring of Introduction and Scope and Summary of Areas of Good Areas of Directives for Compliance and ConclusionCHAPTER 6 Marking Guidelines Discussions and Approval Introduction and Scope and Summary of Areas of Good Areas of Directives for Compliance and ConclusionCHAPTER 7 Veri cation of Introduction and Scope and Summary of Areas of Good Areas of Directives for Compliance and ConclusionCHAPTER 8 Standardisation and Introduction and Scope and Summary of Areas of Good Areas of Directives for Compliance and ConclusionCHAPTER 9 The Status of Certi cation of the National Senior Certi cate, 2014/2015 Current Status of Certi cationAcknowledgements323232323434353536 3636373939404041414141596060606161616162 63636364646567 Executive SummaryUmalusi is mandated by the General and Further Education and Training Quality Assurance Act (Act no.)

3 58 of 2001, amended in 2008) to quality assure all exit-point assessment practices for all registered and accredited assessment bodies, including the South African Comprehensive Assessment Institute (SACAI).All aspects of the assessment programme have been moderated, veri ed and quality assured. The purpose of this report is to present the ndings reported by Umalusi 's external moderators and monitors. The information contained in it serves to inform the Umalusi Council about the processes followed, as well as the areas of good practice and the areas where there is cause for concern. This should place the Council in a position to take an informed decision regarding the standardisation and approval of the results of the National Senior Certi cate (NSC) examinations administered and presented by this assessment body, and to provide directives for compliance and/or aspects of the SACAI 2015 assessments and examinations have been quality assured and reported on by Umalusi moderators and monitors.

4 These nine aspects form the nine chapters of this report. Each chapter provides summaries and analyses of the ndings of the various assessment processes: Chapter 1: Moderation of question papers Chapter 2: Moderation of School Based Assessment (SBA) Chapter 3: Monitoring the state of readiness Chapter 4: Monitoring of writing Chapter 5: Monitoring of marking Chapter 6: Marking guidelines discussion Chapter 7: Veri cation of marking Chapter 8: Standardisation and resulting Chapter 9: Status of certi cation of the NSC 2014/2015 In 2015, the Umalusi moderation of question papers for the SACAI focused on eight organising elds of learning, from which a total of 91 question papers, 46 for the 2015 November and 45 for the March2016 NSC examinations, were moderated. Seventeen of the ninety one question papers were approved at rst moderation, of these, nine were question papers for the November 2015 examination and eight for the March 2016 examination.

5 The majority of the question papers were approved at the second moderation, which is a positive aspect in this regard, although it is Umalusi 's expectation that all papers will be approved at rst moderation. Lastly, ve papers were approved at the fourth moderation and beyond. The delay in the approval of papers is attributed to a failure to incorporate the external moderators' recommendations. The SACAI examiners and internal moderators should ensure that these recommendations are fully addressed to improve the levels at which question papers are next area of quality assurance to be subjected to a moderation process was the School Based Assessment (SBA) undertaken at centres af liated to the SACAI. Umalusi conducted SBA moderation vin October 2015 on a sample of 13 almost all the subjects sampled, there were centres that were compliant in the conduct and administration of internal assessments.

6 However, adherence to quality standards and appropriate content coverage varied from subject to subject and from centre to centre. For example, it was cited that incorrect assessment tasks were administered in subjects such as Accounting and that there was non-compliance with content coverage in Economics. At one centre, the wrong poems were used for the June English FAL P2 examination, whilst assessment of the wrong content in Mathematical Literacy was also identi must be commended for the improvement it has shown over the year. There is an improvement in the cognitive levels of its English FAL papers and in the depth of questioning. The appointment of quali ed and experienced markers improved the quality and standard of SACAI administered and conducted the writing of NSC examinations nationally during the period14 October to 27 November 2015. During the same period, Umalusi monitored the writing phase of this examination at 15 centres af liated to SACAI.

7 SACAI ensured that the chief invigilators and invigilators were well trained. Training of chief invigilators took place in Pretoria, as well as in most other major centres in the country. This training was done by senior personnel of SACAI, and the information was cascaded down to all invigilators at the local centres. In all cases, training focused on the management, conduct and administration of examinations, including the handling of of the conduct and administration of the examination by SACAI was found to be lacking. Six of the fourteen centres monitored reported that they had not been visited by SACAI of cials to monitor the examination in progress. Since some of these centres were writing the NSC examinations for the rst time, this is quite disturbing, as the of cials at these centres needed to know whether they were on the right track. However, where monitoring by the assessment body did take place, it was reported that no serious problems were identi monitoring of marking was the second phase conducted by Umalusi monitors and moderators.

8 The marking of candidates' scripts was conducted centrally at the SACAI head of ce in Garsfontein, Pretoria East. Umalusi visited the SACAI marking centre on 15 November 2015. The Umalusi monitor who visited SACAI used an instrument that had been designed to collect the information required, and conducted interviews with the marking centre manager, made observations and veri ed evidence provided by SACAI on the conduct of the marking phase of the NSC marking venue was SACAI's administration of ces and three rooms had been designated as areas for marking: the boardroom, the auditorium and the big hall. Accordingly, the marking centre had the necessary space and facilities to accommodate all the marking personnel. All three rooms had adequate and appropriate furniture, that is, suf cient tables and chairs to accommodate allthe markers, and the ablution facilities were adequate and hygienically were locked safely in the holding area during the marking guideline discussions.

9 All the scripts were counted at the end of the day and markers were thoroughly checked by security upon leaving to ensure that no scripts left the marking room. The SACAI is to be commended for this effective was, however, reported that there was no access control at the gate. Cars drove in and out of the marking centre without being searched or having to produce any form of identi cation. Even though there are security cameras, alarms and re extinguishers both outside and inside the buildings, the lack of security checks at the gate poses a serious risk to the security of the entire marking process. There was, however, some limited form of veri cation at the entrance to the marking , as a result of their training, were well informed about what constitutes an irregularity and were also aware of the procedure to be followed in such a case. On spotting an irregularity, markers reported to the chief marker and the necessary forms were completed and referred to the irregularities committee.

10 An irregularities register was kept by the centre irregularities committee consisted of the director, the centre manager, the academic manager and the chief marker for the subject. Irregularities were escalated to the irregularities committee as and when they were detected and reported to the centre marking guideline discussions also took place at the SACAI head of ce. These meetings consisted of the panels convened for each subject, which included Umalusi external moderators, as well as internal moderators, chief markers and markers. The meetings, which were hosted by the SACAI, served to standardise the marking guidelines and to incorporate alternative responses into the nal marking guidelines before the marking process started. These meetings, as mentioned, included the Umalusi external moderators responsible for the moderation of the SACAI-NSC question marking guideline discussions were held for all of the 26 subjects written in November 2015 for the NSC examination.