Umalusi is the new council for quality in the general and further education bands (GET and FET) and began its work in June 2002. When we trace its origins, we have to understand something about its predecessor — the South African Certification Council (Safcert). Safcert was established in August 1986 and finally closed in March 2002. It was instituted to issue certificates at points of withdrawal in school and technical education, with the object of a single national certificate instead of the large number of provincial and other certificates that existed. It had to ensure that the certificate represented the same standard of education and examination everywhere, and that appropriate standards were maintained.
In addition, the abolition of the Joint Matriculation Board and the transfer of its certification functions to Safcert also changed the emphasis from the matriculation examination to the senior certificate, which could be endorsed for those candidates who met the requirements for university admission.
Umalusi is charged with taking care of one of our nation’s most valued possessions: a substantial chunk of the country’s education and training system.
Umalusi’s functions are to:
– accredit providers
– monitor the suitability and adequacy of standards and qualifications
– ensure that providers adopt quality management systems for learner achievements
– assure the quality of learner assessment at exit points
– issue certificates of learner achievement in terms of standards or qualifications registered on the national qualifications framework
– promote quality improvements among providers and
– monitor and report to central government on the performance of the departments of education as providers and recommend steps to rectify deficiencies.
The quality assurance of assessments forms the greater part of the inheritance from Safcert. Today, Umalusi faces many challenges in carrying out this traditional function because of the complexities in the education and training system.
These include the presence of both internal and external assessments; the general education and training certificate as an additional qualification; and the growing need to recognise education and training outside of the schooling institution.
Regarding the quality assurance of learning programmes, Umalusi is engaging with the Department of Education about the management of new qualifications offered by Umalusi providers. While providers are bound by current prescription in programme offerings, Umalusi and its partners are looking for the best ways to manage this transitional phase until the old curriculums are phased out.
When talking institutional quality assurance, it must be borne in mind that public providers are ‘deemed” to be accredited, and so do not have to go through the accreditation process. However, they must still satisfy the conditions for accreditation. It is the private institutions that must be accredited. Umalusi is prioritising institutions that offer full qualifications for full-time learners first (schools, colleges and Public Adult Learning Centres).
There is no agreement in education and training on quality assurance. It is necessary that a central body — in this case Umalusi — establishes a common core of what should be expected in regards to the management of quality by institutions, the quality of learning programmes, as well as the quality of assessments leading to certification, and what ties these components together.
Because Umalusi’s focus is on the provincial departments for public provision, this gives space and support to more ‘localised” use of indicators in the system, instead of designing large sets of complex national indicators that merely imitate international practice. This in turn will enable learning sites (schools, colleges and centres) to work with small sets of simple indicators that are derived from collective visions of what education and training should be like, and that can effectively guide local action for educational transformation.
The vision and scope for education transformation is ‘quality for all”. Within this frame of systemic reform there is a need to focus on the outcomes of education in both public and private provision. There are political choices that are made by a nation regarding what the pursued outcomes are to be, but these are not often articulated. Choices are made among a number of outcomes, such as academic achievements; creation of a trained workforce; creation of markets for educational services; and intellectual and social skills for responsible citizenship. While Umalusi is not the organisation to define what South Africa asks of its education and training system, the organisation will play a role in drawing some consensus from the different parties regarding the desired outcomes.
The challenges are enormous. There is a need to prioritise those areas that are likely to become casualties if not attended to soon. But we must also maintain and improve the health of those elements that have been doing well and be cautious not to turn them into patients too.
Dr Peliwe Lolwana is the CEO of Umalusi, the new Council for Quality Assurance in General and Further Education and Training