(Vocational) and - Umalusi

Westlake Campus must be singled out as a centre of excellence. They were very well
prepared for Umalusi’s moderating visit and provided all the necessary
documentation for evaluation. They had implemented all the recommendations
which had been made in May by Umalusi’s external moderator. The campus was
well run and an example to others. The staff complied with all the necessary criteria.
Learner support was excellent and Westlake was one of the few campuses that
reviewed learner performance and provided qualitative feedback. As a result of
excellent internal moderation, Mathematics was identified as being at risk and
additional support had been brought in. Lecturers were dedicated and worked
together as a team. The Head of Department was an excellent manager who was
responsible for the smooth running of a highly functional campus. They are to be
congratulated for this excellent work.
6 AREAS FOR IMPROVEMENT
Only qualified lecturers should be appointed, or training should be offered to ensure
that the lecturers became subject matter experts.
On-going in-house training of lecturers is essential. Training to close knowledge gaps,
in assessment and moderation processes, compiling appropriate assessment tasks
and tools, classroom management and methodology is most pressing. Workshops on
the latest policy changes and developments in various subjects are also necessary.
Campuses must ensure that their facilities are adequate for the accommodation of
enrolled learners.
Assessment and moderation policies and procedures should be implemented and
monitoring and auditing visits by the college as well as at provincial and national
level should take place more regularly to ensure compliance with requirements.
Teaching and learning will not improve without such interventions.
It is essential for moderators to pre-moderate tasks and provide qualitative feedback
to assessors. Learner performance should be evaluated and the tasks and tools
reviewed and revised after every assessment.
The pacesetter should become a working document used to plan and record the
year’s work.
An assessment grid should be drawn up when tasks are set to ensure that the
taxonomic spread of questions is covered as well as the levels of difficulty. There
were far too many knowledge-based questions in tasks. More use should be made of
matrices.
A more creative method of setting papers should be used rather than the
regurgitation of past examination papers.
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