New school certificate for South Africa launching next year
South Africa is around a year away from seeing a national rollout of a new school certificate for grade 9 learners – known as the General Education Certificate (GEC).
Basic education, Angie Motshekga said that its purpose is “to provide learners with expanded opportunities to display their capabilities on inquiry-based learning, solving real-world problems and designing practical solutions.”
This “will better prepare them for further education and training and the world of work,” she added.
Despite concerns from some academics, the department (DBE) has stressed that this is not an exit point for learners from the school system at Grade 9, but rather provides decision-making tools for learners.
This is particularly targeted for those who may shift their focus to more technical subjects and trades instead of having a singular focus on a college or university education.
Describing the necessity for the GEC, the department said that under the current system, thousands of students leave the school system each year without a qualification which hinders them from finding jobs.
The DBE said that if these learners have a certificate, they would be able to at least move on to some other form of training.
Basic education department spokesperson, Elijah Mhlanga, described the GEC as groundbreaking for the South African education system.
Learners are “able to work on and solve problems with inter-disciplinary knowledge and skills,” said Mhlanga, adding that it embeds “21st-century skills [like] critical thinking, communication, collaboration, creativity and cognition (metacognition) into practical assessment forms.”
“The key paradigm shift needed in the sector and the broader community on the GEC is a necessary shift from a strong examinations culture towards embracing a broader spectrum of assessments that can more holistically describe learner proficiency,” he said.
Additionally, Mhlanga said that the new ‘Inclinations Assessment’ that forms part of the curriculum will help learners clarify what their strengths, interests, and future career paths are in order to help them get on the right track.
While the department has set 2025 as its national implementation date, the GEC was initially meant to be fully rolled out in 2024.
The certificate was piloted across 270 schools in all nine provinces in 2022, and extended to 1,000 schools in 2023.
Mhlanga said the “current challenge for the Department is to support the GEC rollout with an IT system that improves the efficiency of testing and generates a balanced scorecard for learners.”
Loading ...
