SADTU must stop disgraceful boycott
3 September 2015
The South African Democratic Teachers Union's (SADTU) decision to instruct its 250 000 teacher members to boycott invigilation of the upcoming Annual National Assessments (ANAs) demonstrates yet again that SADTU does not care about our country’s children.
This decision will compromise the ability of the Department of Basic Education to assess the levels of literacy and numeracy of our learner’s and will undermine their education. It is a shameful decision which needs to be reconsidered urgently.
The DA will write to SADTU to request that they retract their call for the boycott in the interests the learners, teachers and ultimately the education that all our children deserve.
While the ANAs are not perfect, they are one of the only tools we have to assess the status of learner literacy and numeracy and then implement targeted interventions aimed at improving the quality of education of our children. The importance of these assessments thus lies in the interventions they inform.
The 2015 ANAs are set to take place between 15 and 18 September and will see approximately 8.6-million pupils in Grades 1 to 9 writing the tests.
The tests, first introduced in 2010, have shown that our learners have serious deficits in literacy and numeracy. By the end of Grade 1, half of South African children are not adequately literate and are unlikely to ever catch up.
According to the most recent ANA results, only 3% of Grade 9 learners were found to be numerate at a grade-appropriate level -a far cry from the presidential target of 60%. The average score for the Grade 9 mathematics assessment was 10.8%.
Based on the results of the ANAs it is clear that our education system is in the midst of a crisis of quality. SADTU's boycott will do nothing to improve this dire situation.
SADTU’s proposed boycott will mean that the problems that learners experience will simply move with them to their next Grades without any appropriate evidence-based intervention being implemented to address the shortcomings.
It is important that teachers are supported and helped to improve the results of their learners. The DA has requested, and the Minister has agreed, that teachers will in fact, be required to write the ANAs themselves in future. This will allow focused identification of teacher shortcomings and will inform interventions to address them and ultimately improve the quality of education that learners receive.
The ANAs provide just this opportunity to identify where these interventions, for both the learners and teachers, are required.
The DA will continue to fight for the quality education that all our children deserve and against those who work to compromise this education.
Statement issued by Annette Lovemore, DA shadow minister of basic education, 3 September 2015
