Assessment in the further education and training school sector: a quality assurance perspective

English: South Africa’s performance record in the international arena together with reports of national quality assurance bodies released in recent years have highlighted the alarmingly poor results in the educational accomplishments specifically amongst learners in the further education and training school sector. An analysis of school learning achievements compared to national and international benchmarks has indicated that an improvement in the quality of learning output remains one of the biggest challenges facing the South African educational system. Finding means to improve the performance of learners as well as the quality of the education learners receive is a major priority for all stakeholders. Despite vigorous attempts of the national department (DoE) to develop initiatives and programs aimed at improving learner achievements, minimal progress has been achieved. Umalusi, the quality assurance body for Further Education and Training (FET), intends to address this problem as one of its top priorities. Existing literature indicate that strengthening the assessment practices currently employed could result in improved teaching, learning and assessment whilst simultaneously enhancing quality assurance in schools. There is a marked variation in performance of schools throughout the country. An attempt was therefore made to identify constraints leading to the different performance levels of schools. Schools for the research were selected from different categories: good, average and low performing schools based on the performance of their 2009 grade 12 results. The goal this study pursued was to provide a theoretical underpinning of assessment at school level from a quality assurance perspective. Information assimilated from contemporary literature, was utilised to develop a questionnaire with the aim to investigate teachers’ awareness of quality assurance measures that should be implemented during assessment practices in schools. Additionally, it aimed to determine whether teachers assess learners in totality and also to investigate the extent of quality assurance measures being employed. A qualitative study was also conducted to strengthen the quantitative findings. Results indicated that various constraints impeding the implementation and application of quality assurance were present and that these constraints affected the performances of the learner. This was made evident in the data analysis where teachers of the different school groupings were compared in respect of their awareness and understanding of assessment and quality assurance measures. Findings of what were considered good assessment practices in the study were compared with those in the existing literature review which enabled the researchers to make recommendations pertaining to the improvement of assessment practices and enhancement of quality assurance.