Abstract
Assessment is a crucial aspect of teaching and learning; it includes various means of assessing what learners could reproduce as product of learning. Annual National Assessment (ANA) is a large scale assessment with the sole aim of measuring learners’ achievement, growth and progress. Since the introduction and implementation of ANA in 2010, the analysis of the results from 2011 to 2014 has shown very little improvement in learner performance. This qualitative study sought to ascertain how stakeholders supported standardised testing to overcome its limitations, and can be used to improve teaching and learning in South African schools. The theoretical framework that underpins this study is the Hard Accountability Model. Themes were generated from the collected data from ten English teachers, ten Mathematics and ten Heads of Departments from ten grade six primary schools in King Cethswayo district, Kwa-Zulu Natal Province of South Africa. Findings revealed that stakeholders did not support adequately ANA to fulfil its purpose in schools. The study also indicated inadequate teacher development programmes to regularly capacitate teachers on how to improve ANA results. The study therefore recommended that the Department of Basic Education should ensure that teacher developmental programmes are conducted while curriculum advisors and School Management Teams should strengthen their supervision and monitoring in schools.
Highlights
Agriculture is a pillar for sustained development, poverty alleviation and enhanced food security in many third world countries (Olwande et al, 2009)
Productivity of agriculture has witnessed a downward trend, with poverty increasing. This is at variance with one of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) of reducing the share of people suffering from extreme poverty and hunger by 50% come the year 2015
The most notable failure has been in Sub Saharan Africa (SSA) where agricultural productivity has dawdled behind than any other region in the world, well below food security and poverty reduction levels
Summary
Agriculture is a pillar for sustained development, poverty alleviation and enhanced food security in many third world countries (Olwande et al, 2009). Agro-based research in SSA and the world over has had a huge impact in improving livelihoods through enhancing productivity growth giving rise to improved rates of return on investments (Alene and Coulibaly, 2008; Thirtle et al, 2003). Most notable has been by Ravallion (1998); Ravallion and Datt (1999) as well as Fan et al (1999) in India They discovered that higher agricultural wages and higher yields tend to reduce poverty, with lower farm productivity, lower rural living standards, lower literacy rates experiencing less propoor growth, as well as investments in roads and agricultural R & D and extension, which apart from increasing incomes, had effect on wage increases and lower food prices. An array of research and development outputs or processes have been utilised to capture a fuller portrait on the ground
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