TEACHER UNIONS UNITE ON THE 2015 ANNUAL NATIONAL ASSESSMENTS (ANA)

South Africa’s major education unions SADTU, NAPTOSA and SAOU welcomes the joint decision to postpone the 2015 ANA until 2016. The decision was taken following lengthy deliberations between the Department of Basic Education (DBE) and unions in the Education Sector on 8 and 10 September 2015 in Cape Town and Durban respectively, following a call from SADTU to its members not to administer ANA until the DBE comes to the table and deal with matters of education in a responsible manner.

The postponement will allow for the remodeling of the ANA by a joint task team that will comprise of Union Principals and Senior DBE officials.  It was also agreed that the remodeling will take place before the end of 2015.

Furthermore, the Unions welcomes the commitment by the Director-General (DG) of the DBE to improve relations between the Department and Unions as well as making more resources available for teacher development. The DG also committed to address the outstanding issues in the Education Labour Relations Council (ELRC) as a matter of urgency.

Educators are reminded that the Unions supported the initial intention of the ANA as a systemic evaluation tool, but opposed the manner in which the ANA evolved into a high-stakes annual assessment system. The Unions called for annual assessment to be substituted by a three year cycle. The Unions are also not in favour of the extension of the ANA to include other grades in addition to the initial focus grades namely, Grades 3, 6 and 9.

We are pleased that the DBE finally adhered to Unions’ requests regarding the challenges presented by the ANA and is committed to working on remodeling the assessment system for future implementation.
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For further information contact:

Basil Manuel -               NAPTOSA President                 079 508 6228

Mugwena Maluleke–     SADTU General Secretary        082 783 2968

Chris Klopper    –         SAOU   Executive Director       083 708 7733