DailyNews.gif Common test boycott by teachers Daily News, Durban, 9 March 2016 Teacher unions and the KwaZulu-Natal Department of Education are set to square off again - this time over the writing of common tests for Grades 3, 6 and 9 between the first and second terms at all public schools in the province. An educational expert has called for the unions and the department to minimise tensions and improve communication. The unions have again threatened to defy the department's instruction on the writing of the common tests, as they believe the tests are just the "ANA in disguise". The circular said pupils would be tested on maths and languages, and was apparently sent to schools last week without prior discussion with teacher unions, union leaders said on Tuesday. In 2015, the department and the unions butted heads over the writing of ANA assessments - resulting in these assessments not being written at most of the schools across the country. Anthony Pierce, Naptosa's KZN chief executive, said they were opposed to common testing as it did not build capacity for teachers, nor improve -pupils' academic performance. "The suggestion that we consider the second term for implementation is ludicrous. It is a term with a number of interruptions, including public holidays. It is not the ideal term to consider testing because educators are also preparing for the quarterly tests," he said. Pierce said the over-testing of pupils was problematic as it shortened teaching time at schools and said previous attempts at common testing fell flat. "Results were dismal, leading to re-testing, and marking techniques differed from school to school," he said. SADTU's KZN secretary, Nomarashiya Caluza, said they had sent a circular to all regions instructing teachers and principals not to administer the common tests. "We have concluded that this is ANA in disguise. Our energy must be deployed to improve the results," she said. "They just surprised us with this circular and did not discuss it with us. Our members informed us about it, so we have told them we will never administer these common tests," she said. The individual schools would decide when the common tests would be written, with no scheduled timetable set by the department. Caluza said this was problematic as the pupils would be expected to write the same papers at different times. Sadtu has written to education head Dr Nkosinathi Sishi urging him to withdraw the circular. NATU's deputy president, Allen Thompson, said the circular was an indication at how "useless" Sishi was, and proved why matric results in the province were on a downward spiral. "They are trying to resuscitate ANA while the rest of the country is concentrating on the good work being done by the ANA task team," he said. Thompson said the department should be focusing on employing more teachers, but was instead "wasting money" that would not assist to "make things better". Natu is calling on all principals to ignore this circular as "it demonstrates how weak the education system is in this province". University of KwaZulu-Natal's education expert, Professor Labby Ramrathan, said at a time when education was in crisis, the unions and department could ill afford to be at loggerheads with each other. "We need better engagement between the unions and the department, so they must find a way to manage that," he said. "They need to get together and find ways to collaborate, because we cannot have this every year. It does not make sense". Ramrathan felt continuous testing without remedial action was meaningless, and said the provincial department should be taking the lead from the national Department of Basic Education to avert tensions. From: http://mini.iol.co.za/dailynews/news/common-test-boycott-by-teachers-1995359 -- -- You are subscribed. This footer can help you. Please POST your comments to [email protected] or reply to this message. You can visit the group WEB SITE at http://groups.google.com/group/yclsa-eom-forum for different delivery options, pages, files and membership. To UNSUBSCRIBE, please email [email protected] . You don't have to put anything in the "Subject:" field. You don't have to put anything in the message part. All you have to do is to send an e-mail to this address (repeat): [email protected] . --- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "YCLSA Discussion Forum" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
