New report cards will rank schools
The days of a school being lauded as a top performer in the matric exams just because it achieved a 100% pass rate are numbered.
The department of basic education and the Michael & Susan Dell Foundation are piloting a “grade 12 school report card” designed to provide a more comprehensive picture of each institution’s performance.
The report card was sparked by mounting criticism that the widely used grade 12 pass rate “is often a poor gauge of school quality or progress”. It will take into account several performance factors such as the pupil dropout rate before grade 12 and pupils’ achievement in maths and physical science.
Schools will also be compared to “like” schools, or those from the same quintile ranking. For example, the accomplishments of a quintile 1 (very poor) school will be compared with schools in the same quintile.
The department’s new “Action plan to 2024: Towards the realisation of schooling 2030”, says the matric pass rate is correctly seen as biased, “in part because it penalises schools which do a better job of preventing the dropping out of learners before grade 12. The pass rate can be distorted by differences across schools in terms of who ‘survives’ and does not drop out.”
The document says the low pass rate in
KwaZulu-Natal is a consequence of the province’s success in ensuring a higher proportion of pupils reach grade 12 and become exam candidates.
Jef Jacobs, programme manager for New Leaders Foundation, a partner of the Dell Foundation, says SA relies on the conventional National Senior Certificate pass rate and pass rates for several key subjects to assess and measure performance.
“This does not account for learners dropping out before grade 12 or those selecting easier subjects, phenomena which can be easily manipulated by schools to artificially improve pass rates,” he says.
“Little or no consideration” is given to the socioeconomic conditions and barriers faced by schools and, “as a result, schools easily become considered weak when in fact they are performing relatively well under the circumstances”.
The report card will contain indicators that will be compared to district and provincial averages for schools in the same quintile. “At this stage the report card is meant to help education managers and schools understand how well a school is performing when compared to similar schools and how this performance is changing over time,” says Jacobs.
It will also indicate schools that need support, and the better-performing neighbouring schools that can be approached “to assist in unlocking performance improvements”.
The report card is to be launched next year in selected areas. “It is envisaged that the grade 12 school report card will be available to the public eventually through the department of basic educationwebsite.”