ANAs to go ahead, despite unions
THE Annual National Assessments (ANAs) will go ahead as planned – with or without teacher unions, the Department of Basic Education says.
Spokesperson Elijah Mhlanga insisted yesterday that even if teacher unions boycotted the exams, the assessments would still be written in December.
Teacher unions – the SA Democratic Teachers Union (Sadtu), the National Professional Teachers’ Organisation of SA (Naptosa), the SuidAfrikaanse Onderwysersunie (SAOU), the National Teachers Union and the Professional Educators Union – are not backtracking on their plan to boycott the ANAs, which are meant to test numeracy and literacy in Grade 1 to 9 pupils.
They said they were not happy with the ANAs in their current form and their concerns had not been addressed by the department.
About 8 million pupils were supposed to sit for the ANAs this month, but on Friday Basic Education Minister Angie Motshekga announced that the exams would be written in December. This after the unions’ announcement that they would boycott the tests.
The department had ini- tially announced that the tests would be written in February next year.
Yesterday, Mhlanga said the department was confident it would be able to administer the ANAs. “We continue to engage the unions on their concerns. ANA does not necessarily need 100 percent participation. As long as you have conducted the test, (you can have) a sense of the health of the system in whatever way. We should be fine with that. We feel that we should be able to do that,” he said. “It is not about each and every pupil, it is a systematic diagnostic tool. Whether it is a perfect one is a matter that we
are busy debating now.”
On Sunday, the unions had a meeting with Deputy Education Minister Enver Surty on the decision to continue with the exams in December.
A task team set up to look into the ANAs had its first meeting yesterday. Naptosa’s executive director Henry Hendricks said two working groups would be formed to ensure the remodelling of the ANAs proceeded smoothly.
The task team and work groups have 90 days to put together a proposal, after which the unions will jointly implement the new ANA system.
Hendricks said Motshekga’s decision to go ahead with the exams would not have a negative impact on the task team’s work.
Mhlanga said an agreement had been reached with the unions. “Now the task team is accelerating the process to ensure we have a new form of assessment.”
Yesterday, the unions said that while they were boycotting the ANAs, there wouldn’t be any strike action.
Naptosa president Basil Manuel said it was unreasonable to expect teachers to administer the ANAs when they were supposed to be preparing report cards in December.
SAOU executive director Chris Klopper said: “We do not want to write the ANAs as they are.” Meanwhile, the ANC is planning a meeting with Sadtu.