The panel is fully briefed on the criteria for selection and is chaired by a provincial representative. The inclusion of curriculum developers in the selection panel is crucial as they, based on their interaction with the educators are able to recommend educators who have demonstrated integrity in the conduct of internal assessment.
The DBE appointed a seasoned team of experts to set the national question papers and to serve as moderators of marking. The core business of this team is to verify whether the marking guideline is being applied consistently from one province to another. These experts perform the role of evaluators and ensure that standards are maintained across provinces so as to ensure that when results are compared, they are based on the same standard of marking across provinces.
The Western Cape has utilized an effective system of capturing the learners' marks per question and this has enabled the province to identify weaknesses of learners in specifc domains. Therefore problems in performance are no longer generalized but the detailed analysis is able to pinpoint a domain-specifc area of defciency which needs to be remedied. In the case of other provinces, the moderator was tasked to collect data and generate an analytical report. This feedback to teachers will improve teaching and learning, as teachers focus on particular areas of weakness in their subject.
At this level, moderation is conducted by teachers, i.e. peer moderation, although under supervision of subject advisors. The moderation involves: checking for compliance in terms of the Subject Assessment Guidelines (SAGs), as well as evaluating the assessment tasks, to ascertain whether they are pitched at the appropriate level. While these are considered good practices, the checking of assessment tasks in most of the provinces does not serve the purpose as it is done after the assessment tasks are administered and marked. In some cases this is done late in the year. Therefore, there are cases where the standard of the assessment tasks is not pitched at the appropriate level and learners receive infated marks which gives them a misleading picture of their performance. This also does not prepare learners to answer questions pitched according to the required cognitive levels.
In provinces where there is a large number of schools and insuffcient Subject/Curriculum Advisors, some schools are moderated late in the year and therefore do not beneft as they should from the moderation process and the support.
The video lessons, focusing on an examination paper per day, for revision purposes, were broadcast on DSTV Channel 319 and Top TV Channel 319 daily, from 09:00 to 19:00. Between 23rd September and 2nd October 2010, the examination preparation programme was broadcast from 23rd October to 23rd November 2010.