DQAF mission South Africa 2009

Latest revision as of 12:48, 15 October 2012

Background

1. Assessment conducted in February 2009 over 7 working days.
2. UIS met with:
   • Department of Education (DoE)
   • EMIS/HEMIS/EMS/Economic Analysis/Monitoring & Evaluation
   • Further Examination & Training (FET)
   • 3 provinces: KwaZulu Natal, Western Cape, Mpumalanga
3. Report shared with DoE in June 2009.
4. Final version incorporates feedback.

Positives

1. South Africa has a very strong national statistical system that closely corresponds to international standards.
2. Close collaboration between Statistics South Africa (SSA) and the DoE to define statistical quality processes.
3. Comprehensive and decentralized IT tools to the provincial level to support data production chain.
4. Classification of educational programs follows international norms (e.g. National Qualifications Framework).
5. Comprehensive data reporting on education finance at the provincial level.
6. Strict adherence to public and regular data release schedules (pre-primary to post-secondary data).

Areas to strengthen

1. Timeliness & data validation checks are limited by understaffing at the DoE.
2. Little attention paid to resolving missing data issues (e.g., imputation methodologies).
3. Reconcile differences in estimated enrolment counts produced by household surveys and Annual School Census.
4. Variations in provincial human & technical resource capacity limits ability to process data effectively.
5. Provincial web sites are not updated regularly.
6. Private tertiary enrolment are not integrated with public data for international reporting.
7. Data collection questionnaire impacts item response although unit response is relatively high.

Recommendations

1. Review current staffing levels and training requirements both nationally & provincially (e.g., EMIS workload in KwaZulu Natal).
2. Assure on-going provincial adherence to Data Quality Standard for Surveys.
3. Simplify data collection instrument to consider provincial resource limitations.
4. DoE should ensure on-line data cover entire education sector (e.g., FET colleges).
5. Verify accuracy of private and public teacher data.
6. EMS department should revise EMIS data capture element to include a data validation check.
7. DoE should publish complete set of indicators at provincial and national levels in Education Statistics in South Africa.
8. School registers should be standardized across provinces and schools.
9. Provincial user needs should inform questionnaire design.

References

1. ↑ A Synthesis of Seven Country Assessments March 2010 - UNESCO SADC

See also

• South Africa county page