Quality assurance establishment in South African schools

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CHAPTER 3 LITERATURE REVIEW (2): QUALITY SCIENCE EDUCATION CHALLENGES

INTRODUCTION

Quality education is a difficult concept to define. According to UNESCO (2004:2) quality education should be instrumental in the child’s full development in terms of cognition, emotion and creativity. It should not only focus on the aspect of achieving good grades at school but must also consider the creative and emotional development of individuals as well as inculcate citizenship values in them. Sanyal and Martin (2007:5) identify the following ten aspects of quality education according to different stakeholders: providing excellence; being exceptional; providing value for money; conforming to specifications; getting things right the first time; meeting customers’ needs; having zero defects; providing added value; exhibiting fitness of purpose and exhibiting fitness for purpose.
In South Africa quality education mainly focuses on matric results and percentage pass rates. For many years the South African education system has had only one credible objective measure of learner performance, namely the National Senior Certificate Examination (DBE, 2011:20). The monitoring and evaluation of programmes delivered need to be strengthened and skilled human resource capacity needs to be developed to deal with the multiple challenges and contexts for training (DBE APP, 2015-16). The DBE has realised that more needs to be done to improve the quality of education in South Africa:
“The focus of the Department of Basic Education for the 2015/2016 financial year will be to consolidate achievements made so far while expediting strategies for improvement. We remain resolute in our quest to improve quality and efficiency throughout the schooling sector, with a renewed emphasis on curriculum coverage and the need to strengthen quality, efficiency and accountability in our provinces, districts and schools” (Motshekga, 2015).
In order to strengthen quality, efficiency and accountability there should be effective quality assurance mechanisms to be followed. This chapter identifies the loopholes in the South African education system which cause poor quality science education and proposes ways how quality assurance can address these challenges. Particular attention is paid to science education and the factors contributing to poor quality science results in South Africa. Mathematics, science and technology participation in these gateway subjects has been declining in some schools in the recent years (DBE APP, 2015-16). Experience has shown that most schools reduce the number of mathematics and science learners as they reach matric in order to boost the overall school pass rate, which the author refers to as “culling” instead of selecting capable learners in Grade 10. The identification of the areas that bring about poor science education in this study will become the basis for a framework in quality assurance which specifically targets science education.

THE QUALITY OF SCIENCE EDUCATION IN SOUTH AFRICA

The quality of science education at FET level can be measured by the results of the National Senior Certificate (NSC) examination, which is written by most candidates in the country and all public school learners in South Africa. In this study “science” refers to two learning areas, namely Physical Sciences and Life Sciences. The term poor quality is, however, relative but in this study the emphasis is on the output or exit level matric results in Life Sciences and Physical Sciences. This is the measurable outcome mainly used by the DBE and institutions when selecting students for university, college intakes and job markets. From the perspective of the universities and most colleges in countries around the world the quality pass mark should be above 50%.
Table 3.1 shows that there have been steady decreases in the percentage of learners achieving at 30% and 40% in Life Sciences over the four-year period from 2013 to 2016. For the 40% and above achievers the only slight increase was in 2014, when there was an increase of 1,1%. From then there was a decrease of 2.9% and 0,8% in 2015 and 2016 respectively. The decrease over the four years was 47.8% –45.2% = 2.6%. Universities usually consider 50% and above for intakes in critical scientific areas like engineering and branches of medicine. The fact that less than half of the learners (45,2%) obtained 40% and above in 2016 leaves a lot of questions on the quality that universities are looking for. This suggests that the quality of results has been decreasing in Life Sciences, which is a worrisome trend that needs to be investigated. This study will try to unlock some of the reasons with the emphasis on quality assurance mechanisms.
Table 3.2 shows that the percentage of learners that achieved 40% and above from 2014 to 2016 has been less than 40%, for example of the 193 189 learners who wrote in 2014 only 69 699 achieved 40% and above, which is 36.1% of the learners who sat for the examination. This suggests that 63.1% of the learners did not obtain the desired quality results sought by universities and colleges in 2015. In this study these types of results are termed poor quality results. From the relatively poor quality results in both Life Sciences and Physical Sciences in South Africa from 2013 to 2016 it can be deduced that there are a number of challenges hindering the attainment of good quality results.

SCIENCE EDUCATION CONTEXT

There is consensus that in many places around the world, science education is facing serious challenges. Those seeking to improve science education face numerous, and sometimes complex, problems. In many places the lack of resources, both educational and financial, is linked to a dearth of adequately trained teachers and the growing popularity of non-scientifically based belief systems (International Council for Science ICSU, 2011:7). According to the ICSU (2011:8) science education is clearly inadequate in many places around the world, however, there are bright spots where innovative approaches have had some success, and which may form the basis for models that can be emulated elsewhere. Educational research is providing information about effective approaches to facilitate learning and the professional development of educators. In this regard the author of this thesis strongly believes that quality assurance in science education can solve the problems encountered in science education worldwide.

QUALITY SCIENCE EDUCATION

According to Xanthoudaki (2010:38-39) quality science education means providing effective contexts and policy frameworks, taking into account learner and educator influence and perceptions about science, and finally encouraging, developing and fostering cooperation between formal and informal learning environments. Quality science education is accompanied by quality science learning, teaching and pedagogy. It is important to look at quality because it promotes healthy competition, results in customer satisfaction, helps in maintaining standards, provides a platform for accountability, promotes credibility, prestige and status, as well as educators’ morale and motivation (NAAC, 2007). These definitions of quality science education forms the basis of this study. Some of the attributes that promote quality education are discussed in this section.

Quality science learning

Xanthoudaki (2010:39-40) explains quality science learning firstly as adopting an enquiry-based teaching and learning approach to science which is based on observing, questioning, hypothesising, investigating, interpreting, communicating and evaluating acquired knowledge. Secondly, learners in enquiry-based science should view themselves as active participants in the process of learning, who look forward to doing science, demonstrate a desire to learn more, seek to collaborate and work cooperatively with their peers, confident in doing science, demonstrate a willingness to modify ideas, take risks, display healthy scepticism and respect individuals and differing points of view. These ideals to achieve quality science learning in South Africa are hindered by a number of factors, which are discussed in this chapter.

Quality science teaching/pedagogy

For quality science teaching to take place educators can enhance an internally persuasive dialogue by posing authentic questions and follow-up questions that appreciate student answers, challenge the student on a suitable level, and give room for reflection by the learner and/or among learners (SETAC, 2014). Xanthoudaki (2010:42) proposes five steps to facilitate reflections, which are to trigger an interest in knowing how the phenomenon works, allowing for full observation of the phenomenon, allowing for hypothesis-making, allowing for reasoning and allowing for verification through empirical investigation. Educators in South Africa, however, are not able to follow up on all learners’ questions due to time constraints, schedule deadlines which should be met and a great deal of administrative work.

CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION AND BACKGROUND: ORIENTATION OF THE STUDY
1.1 Introduction
1.2 The aim of the research
1.3 Motivation for the research
1.4 Research questions
1.5 The significance of the study
1.6 Literature review
1.7 The research method
1.8 The limitations of the study and key assumptions
1.9 Ethical considerations
1.10 Definition of terms
1.11 Summary of chapters
1.12 Conclusion
CHAPTER 2 LITERATURE REVIEW (1): QUALITY ASSURANCE IN EDUCATION
2.1 Introduction
2.2 The theoretical framework underpinning the study
2.3 Key definitions
2.4 Quality assurance in education
2.5 Quality assurance establishment in South African schools
2.6 Models of quality assurance
2.7 South African models in secondary schools
2.8 Quality assurance structures and the management of assessment
2.9 Learning and teaching support material (LTSM) quality assurance policy
2.10 Total quality management philosophy
2.11 Whole-school evaluation (WSE)
2.12 Parents’ involvement in quality assurance in schools
2.13 Conclusion
CHAPTER 3 LITERATURE REVIEW (2): QUALITY SCIENCE EDUCATION CHALLENGES
3.1 Introduction
3.2 The quality of science education in South Africa
3.3 Science education context
3.4 Quality science education
3.5 Steps towards achieving quality science education in South Africa
3.6 Factors impeding quality science education
3.7 Educational inputs that impede attainment of quality science education
3.8 Educational processes that impede attainment of quality science education
3.9 Conclusion
CHAPTER 4 RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODOLOGY
4.1 Introduction
4.2 Quantitative, qualitative and mixed research philosophies
4.3 Research paradigm
4.4 Research design and methodology
4.5 Population and sampling
4.6 Data collection
4.7 Data analysis
4.8 Credibility
4.9 Ethical considerations
4.10 Conclusion
CHAPTER 5 RESEARCH FINDINGS
5.1 Introduction
5.2 Emerging themes analysis
5.3 Qualitative data summary
5.4 Quantitative data analysis
5.5 Conclusion
CHAPTER 6 SUMMARY, RECOMMENDATIONS AND CONCLUSIONS
6.1 Introduction
6.2 Summary of the chapters
6.3 The findings and answers to the research questions
6.4 Reflections on research design and methodology
6.5 Conclusions from the research
6.6 The limitations of the study
6.7 Suggestions for areas of further research
6.8 Conclusion
CHAPTER 7 A PROPOSED QUALITY ASSURANCE FRAMEWORK FOR THE ATTAINMENT OF QUALITY SCIENCE EDUCATION
7.1 Introduction
7.2 Quality assurance policies for quality science education
7.3 Quality assuring inputs, processes and outputs
7.4 Management of quality assurance practices
8. REFERENCES 
9. APPENDICES
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