Inspecting the Foundations - Umalusi

was circulated at a national ABET meeting for all provinces in October 2007. This version of theguidelines, although further clarifying the intended curricula, still leaves room for interpretation.The introduction to the 2007 Learning Area Assessment Guidelines goes on to describe, giving a fairamount of operational detail, how learners can be assessed, different types of assessment and therecording and reporting of assessment, and gives some exemplars of assessment tools.Guidelines for individual learning areas are then clearly and systematically laid out in this 2007document, each featuring the following components:• A brief introduction explaining the purpose and rationale of the learning area;• Weighting and credits for the required unit standards;• Tables showing specifi c outcomes and associated forms of assessment and types of assessmenttool for each outcome;• Exemplars of types of Site-Based Assessment (SBA) and assessment tools, although they arepresented more as names of examples than actual examples; and• The format and mark rating of the exam, as well as the examples of types of exam question areshown in detail, often with a full exemplar exam paper.All of this information provides clearer guidance for designers of learning programmes thanprevious ABET documentation. There is still, however, potential for wide interpretation of theseguidelines, and for learning programmes to vary greatly with respect to quality. Different provinceshave responded to this absence of clarity by developing differing amounts and levels of guidancefor PALCs under their jurisdiction.4.2.1.2 Provincial DoE documentsAll nine provinces appear to have developed their own ABET documents, some extensively so.Five provincial ABET directorates have developed their own learning programmes, and a sixthhas provided detailed guidelines with full exemplars of the types of activities suitable for learningprogrammes. Four of these provinces compel PALCs in the province to use these programmes. Inthe fi fth province, PALCs are free to choose between using provincial learning programmes, anddeveloping their own. All nine provinces have additional ABET documents for their PALCs, suchas Learning Programme Development Manuals; Portfolios made simple; Facilitator’s Manual onUnderstanding the National Guidelines for Assessment, and others. A summary of the documentsidentifi ed and used by the provinces is available atwww.umalusi.org.za/Inspectingthefoundations/Appendix 2.Provinces make different amounts of documentation available to their PALCs. In one instance,a province provides learning programmes for all learning areas at ABET Levels 1–3, and all eightlearning areas at ABET Level 4; learning programmes for electives; assessment documents forABET Level 1 and 2 Literacy and Numeracy, and Levels 3 and 4 Structured Pathways (specifi edclusters of learning areas); and generic training documents – and the centres use the learning areaprogrammes provided.At the other end of the spectrum, one province provides a single policy guideline on assessment,and PALCs are expected to design their own learning programmes from the SAQA unit standards.In provinces without provincial learning programmes PALCS, therefore, have to develop their own.Umalusi attempted to obtain as many as possible of the provincial documents discussed. Thisobjective was diffi cult to achieve, as many of the documents were in hard copy form only, andoffi cials did not always have full sets at hand. Further, it appears that documents that were sentto Umalusi were not always complete: many are mimeos and seem disjointed and incomplete. Adetailed description of the documents developed per province is available in Appendix 2.29