Marking Matric

The past ten years in South Africa has seen many changes in education - the creation of a single department of education; common examinations for all learners in public schools in the country, a new outcomes based education curriculum which was introduced to learners in the general education and training phase since 1998 and will be introduced to the further education and training phase from 2006. To evaluate the success of these changes South African researchers still use the indicator of student achievement. The matriculation examination is the visible, high profile and public performance indicator. Every year parents, learners, teachers, researchers, government officials, policymakers, and the general public get involved in the debate around the matric examination with the most frequently asked questions being - Did the pass rate go up? Are standards dropping? Are the results real or have they been manipulated? How is our education system doing? Are we meeting the development goals? What should the matriculation examination of the future look like? participants from government (national and provincial),

Educational Assessment in a Time of Reform provides background information on large-scale examination systems more generally and the South African examination specifically. It traces the reforms in the education system of South Africa since 1994 and provides a description of the advances in modern test theory that could be considered for future standard setting endeavours. At the heart of the book is the debate on whether the current standard of education in Africa is good enough . If not, then how can it be improved? The aim of this book is to provide a point of departure for discussions on standard-setting, quality assurance, equating of examinations and assessment approaches. From this point of departure recommendations for practices in general and the exit-level (Grade 12) examination results in particular can be made. This book is ideal reading for principals, teachers, academics and researchers in the fields of educational assessment, measurement, and evaluation.

Summative assessment has been a contentious issue in educational circles for several decades, particularly high-stakes assessment events which arise at various junctures of the school cycle, especially those at the end of it. The French Baccalaureat and English A-Levels and their numerous clones throughout the francophone and anglophone worlds are household names and represent milestone events in people's lives, as their outcomes are principal determinants of young people's future prospects. These examinations are external--they are devised, conducted and processed by agencies outside the schools, usually ministerial examination units. As such, they act as 'blind' arbiters of student achievement, providing the proverbial 'level playing field' which ensures the comparability of outcomes. In the pyramidal school structures of yesteryear, examinations acted as filters, regulating the progression of pupils to subsequent tiers of formal education. Exit points occurred from primary school level up, from where unsuccessful candidates could enter the labour force and/or embark on occupationally specific further education and training. With the modernisation of the labour market and an ever-higher social demand for access to higher levels of formal education, the filtering function of examinations at lower levels of schooling has been gradually eroded, while burgeoning numbers of students at the upper secondary level have brought about reforms that include curricular diversification and sometimes radical overhauls of terminating assessment systems (including the modification and, in some instances, abandonment of external examinations). This edited volume brings together the experiences of twenty examination systems from around the world to show how these dynamic entities have adapted over time to the changing context of schooling. Following an introduction by Stephen P. Heyneman of World Bank repute, there are sixteen chapters presenting Country Case Studies, which have been written up under common subheadings, thereby highlighting the comparative nature of the work and facilitating cross-referencing. The subsequent four chapters elaborate on the theme of 'external examinations beyond national borders', including a contribution by the International Baccalaureate Organisation. A defining feature of the work is the attention it pays to what it calls the 'nuts and bolts' of external examinations, from question-setting to grading procedures. These are, it is argued, instrumental in nurturing and maintaining public confidence in external examinations. The book will be of immense value to people involved in educational policy studies, especially strategic educational planning, as well as those directly concerned with formal assessment. The work has been written to appeal to a wide audience of informed persons--it is accessible to teachers and interested laypeople, as well as to academics."

The International Guide to Student Achievement brings together and critically examines the major influences shaping student achievement today. There are many, often competing, claims about how to enhance student achievement, raising the questions of "What works?" and "What works best?" World-renowned bestselling authors, John Hattie and Eric M. Anderman have invited an international group of scholars to write brief, empirically-supported articles that examine predictors of academic achievement across a variety of topics and domains. Rather than telling people what to do in their schools and classrooms, this guide simply provides the first-ever compendium of research that summarizes what is known about the major influences shaping students’ academic achievement around the world. Readers can apply this knowledge base to their own school and classroom settings. The 150+ entries serve as intellectual building blocks to creatively mix into new or existing educational arrangements and aim for quick, easy reference. Chapter authors follow a common format that allows readers to more seamlessly compare and contrast information across entries, guiding readers to apply this knowledge to their own classrooms, their curriculums and teaching strategies, and their teacher training programs.

The past thirty years have seen a rapid expansion of testing, exposing students worldwide to tests that are now, more than ever, standardized and linked to high-stakes outcomes. The use of testing as a policy tool has been legitimized within international educational development to measure education quality in the vast majority of countries worldwide. The embedded nature and normative power of high-stakes standardized testing across national contexts can be understood as a global testing culture. The global testing culture permeates all aspects of education, from financing, to parental involvement, to teacher and student beliefs and practices. The reinforcing nature of the global testing culture leads to an environment where testing becomes synonymous with accountability, which becomes synonymous with education quality. Underlying the global testing culture is a set of values identified from the increasing literature on world culture. These include: education as a human right, academic intelligence, faith in science, decentralization, and neoliberalism. Each of these values highlights different aspects of the dialogue in support of high-stakes standardized testing. The wide approval of these values and their ability to legitimate various aspects of high-stakes testing reinforces the taken-for-granted notion that such tests are effective and appropriate education practices. However, a large body of literature emphasizes the negative unintended consequences – teaching to the test, reshaping the testing pool, the inequitable distribution of school resources and teachers’ attention, and reconstructing the role of the student, teacher, and parent – commonly found when standardized, census-based tests are combined with high-stakes outcomes for educators or students. This book problematizes this culture by providing critical perspectives that challenge the assumptions of the culture and describe how the culture manifests in national contexts. The volume makes it clear that testing, per se, is not the problem. Instead it is how tests are administered, used or misused, and linked to accountability that provide the global testing culture with its powerful ability to shape schools and society and lead to its unintended, undesirable consequences.

South Africa experienced a momentous change of government from the Apartheid regime to its first democratic government in 1994. This book provides an up-to-date and comprehensive assessment of South Africa's economic policies and performance under democracy. The book includes a stand-alone introduction and economic overview, as well as chapters on growth, monetary and exchange rate policy and fiscal policy, on capital flows and trade policy, on investment and industrial and competition policy, on the effect of AIDs in the macroeconomy, and on unemployment, education and inequality and poverty. Each chapter, and the overview chapter in particular, also addresses prospects for the future.

Expanded access to and improved quality of secondary education in Sub-Saharan Africa are key ingredients for economic growth in the region This Secondary Education in Africa (SEIA) synthesis report makes this point by bringing together a significant volume of analytical work sponsored by the World Bank and by many African and international partners. 'At the Crossroads: Choices for Secondary Education in Sub-Saharan Africa' argues the case for broad and equitable access for a basic education cycle of 8 to 10 years, as well as for expanded education and training opportunities. This book provides a timely resource on good practices and potential solutions for developing and sustaining high quality secondary education systems in Africa. It includes the main elements of a roadmap to improve Africa's secondary education systems' response to the demands of growing economies and rapidly changing societies.

Researching Resilience challenges this tendency to pathologize youth, and marks a profound shift in research methods from the study of disorder to the study of well-being.