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Chairperson’s Message 2 CEO’s Message 4 Organisational Report 6 Corporate Governance14 Finances16 Guild Hall 5 Anerley Road, Parktown Johannesburg 2193 PO Box 875, Highlands North, 2037 Tel 011 483 9700 Email assess@ieb.co.za Website www.ieb.co.za Design by Gingermoon Creative Studio © 2022 Independent Examinations Board. Reproduction of the IEB Annual Report in whole or in part without written permission from the IEB or the publishers is strictly prohibited. Great care has been taken in preparation of the articles. The editor and publishers therefore cannot accept responsibility for any errors which may inadvertently have occurred. The opinions expressed in this report are those of the authors and/or persons interviewed, and do not necessarily reflect the views of the editor, publisher or the IEB.Our own organisation, the IEB, has also had to innovate – for its own good and for the wider education community in the country – in these last few years. I will, shortly, come to talk of the immensely important innovation we are introducing in the form of the International Secondary Certificate (ISC), but need to signal here the ethos underpinning what we do in all that we do. In the face of ongoing debates in the wider education community about the relevance of the IEB, we have had to think about how to provide forms of assessment that are good in their own terms. We have had to explain this in many forums. How do you hold the ideas of goodness and assessment alongside each other, you might ask. Is assessment not in its own inherent terms the strictly neutral exercise of judging worth? Technically, yes, of course. In its application assessment must be ‘blind’. But not in its construction. In its construction and design, it has to be motivated and underpinned by the value of fairness. Fairness is not a straightforward construct of neutrality. It is a formative quality. It proceeds directly out of criteria of what is worthwhile and valuable. These are judgements. Historically, those judgements have often been exclusionary. We try hard at the IEB to be inclusive. This was the basis on which we were founded in the early 1990s. To be inclusive when examination authorities were designed on racial grounds and decided that children classified in historically different terms had to be assessed differently. It is what we continue to strive for. Our assessments must acknowledge the complex abilities and capacities our children have. This is difficult work. But it seeks to be good. Good in the unquestionable sense of being academically rigorous, but good also in the sense that it is mindful of the multiplicity of abilities our children bring to the assessment moment. It seeks to acknowledge our children in their formation as human beings. They are meant to help the children learn, by thinking, as they work through the experience of being tested. Our collaborative problem-solving project is a good example of this. Young people bringing their different skills into a collaborative exercise of working with difficult questions. Another is our work with teachers in user-group settings and emphasizing there the importance of constructive feedback. But it is in the ISC that we are giving expression to our founding commitment to develop assessment frameworks that are good in the inclusive sense I am trying to put forward here. The ISC is an intervention that builds on the foundations we have developed in the National Senior Certificate: to develop through our assessments the following competences - critical skills, ethical reasoning, problem-solving, the capacity to work with social difference and the desire to do good. These all amount to social identities that matter - being active socially minded citizens. The ISC arose out of the need to be able to continue serving schools outside the borders of South Africa that wrote the NSC and may no longer have access to that facility. It gave us the opportunity to do something new, to ground our assessments in the distinctiveness of the African context. Significant about this opportunity is its assertion of the value and legitimacy of thinking from where we are. The African continent. Our theme for this year’s annual report, however, is framed a great deal more optimistically - ex Africa semper aliquid novi - From Africa always something new. It is important to hold on to this optimism, not for the sake of lulling ourselves into an induced state of oblivion, but because we have reason to do so. And those reasons are about the enduring goodness, kindness, generosity and social- mindedness we continue to see everywhere around us. From this goodwill - the simple desire to do good - has come the best of what and who we are as human beings. Generative creativity. I have had the wonderful privilege in this last year of being in the company, a few times, of just one such example of kindness and its socially creative outcomes. In Cape Town, where I live, a movement called the Community Action Network (CAN) arose in the heat of the Covid-19 moment. It arose out of small groups of people making the decision to put together their many different talents, skills, abilities and resources to help the most vulnerable in their midst. Give what you can, how you can, the movement said. The story is not simple, and it deserves a great deal more airing. But it brought together, as one example, and there are many, the best of Gugulethu and Sea Point in a united effort of generosity - sans judgement, conceit, condescension, paternalism, resentment. Driven only by the urgency of doing good. Not immediately apparent, beyond the enormous relief that was provided, were new models and styles of decision-making, communication and action. Mainly bottom-up. They have become formalised and institutionalised into practices that continue. It has made visible another South Africa that actually exists. It is not something we only yearn for. It has stimulated serious discussions about alternative forms of management and governance and posed hard questions to people in power about democracy and service-delivery. Ex Africa semper aliquid novi. Building anew in the wake of the devastation of the last two years An earlier draft of this annual message began on a despondent note. It was difficult not to rehearse for myself the litany of problems characterising the world and particularly our own country and to bemoan our fate.The initiative is founded in our commitment to that great effort of developing an educational agenda that is respectful of all our children, that acknowledges the value of their contexts, their languages and their cultures while looking, always, beyond the immediacy of the time and space in which they find themselves, into the world and taking their place in the world as people with contributions to make. And to say with this, ex Africa semper aliquid novi. The world can also learn from us. It is this reality - that the world can learn from us - that gives substance to our claim of being international. It is a claim we assert from where we stand. Not in being cut-and-paste makeovers of our counterparts in other parts of the world. It is an internationalism that encompasses goodness in all the senses we wish for - academically rigorous and deliberately inclusive. The place at which the IEB stands at this juncture, owes, it is important to emphasize, a great deal to our CEO, Anne Oberholzer. Anne, as many know, comes to the end of her term of office early in 2023. We will have occasion in the next few months to celebrate the great contribution she has made to the country, but need here to acknowledge her driving role in giving substance to the innovatory culture that characterises the work of the IEB and marks it as one of the world’s foremost assessment agencies. The ISC is the gift she leaves behind. Great thanks are due to her. I also wish to thank the senior colleagues around Anne, the indomitable Margie Luckay, the indefatigable Ilana Nell, and those truly inspirational assessment specialists in the IEB. They are supported by a great cast of assessment administrators who do a wide array of jobs with passion and integrity. I thank also, with admiration, the insightful members of the IEB Board who serve with the sole desire to be of value to education and to the country. Professor Crain Soudien, Chairman of the Board, June 2022Besides successfully navigating the Corona virus pandemic, the highlight of the IEB in this year was establishing the International Secondary Certificate, a qualification that marks the IEB’s coming of age. As a “globally-oriented qualification with its roots in Africa”, the ISC provides students in and of Africa access to a world class qualification that prepares them to participate effectively and competently in international communities and at the same time, retain respect and appreciation for their African heritage. The first examinations for this qualification will be conducted in October/November 2022. The qualification has been internationally benchmarked by UK ENIC against school-leaving qualifications in the UK and Australia. In keeping with its African roots, the qualification has also been benchmarked against school-leaving qualifications in Africa, specifically Kenya, and South Africa (Universities South Africa). In all instances the benchmarking reports indicate that the International Secondary Certificate is broadly comparable to GCSE grades A*- C, while its 30-credit Further Studies subjects are considered comparable to the overall GCE Advanced (A) level standard. As such, this qualification is comparable to the relevant qualifications that determine school-leaving competence and entry to tertiary education in the respective countries. Currently the ISC may only be offered by independent schools outside the borders of South Africa. Nonetheless, the significance of this is that independent schools on our continent who wish to offer a qualification that is not the national qualification in their own country, have a broader choice. Currently they can choose only from international qualifications that have their roots in Europe. While these qualifications may have good reputations, they differ from the International Secondary Certificate (ISC) insofar as the latter has been designed to accommodate the contexts and worldview of students in Africa. It has been designed with the express purpose of providing relevance to children of Africa - the curriculum while varied and interesting, centres learning contexts and values in Africa, and so engagement with the wider world is rooted in our African experience. The standards required in the Further Studies curricula and examinations are not an extension simply of quantity but very definitely in intellectual challenge and depth of critical engagement in the discipline. Being South African offerings, the cost of Further Studies subjects in comparison with their international counterparts is certainly more affordable. However, they have the impact of re-assuring us as a country that we are able to produce world class students. The IEB has since its inception been a Proudly South African organisation and hence the Further Studies curricula and examinations are open to any student who wishes to challenge themselves to be the best that they can be whether they write the NSC through the state or the IEB. The IEB has continued to challenge established norms by teaming up with Stellenbosch University’s Unit for International Credentialing (SU-UIC) as an arms-length critic to conduct quality assurance of the IEB in its delivery of the ISC. The IEB is required to show that the examination has been conducted with integrity, the standards have been preserved Europeans and secondly, that the Latin expression in question has been used over and over again to verbalise this amazement”. A V van Stekelenburg, University of Stellenbosch, 1988 And 2021 is no exception. Once again South African authorities held firm, protecting the National Senior Certificate (NSC) qualification from any reputational damage that the pandemic might have caused. Around the world, countries have taken decisions not to hold examinations or to trim the curriculum to such an extent that the results of affected candidates are tainted with perceptions of not being valid or reliable. Our NSC examinations were conducted with no curriculum trimming and no deviation from the standards we expect at the end of Grade 12. In most respects, these candidates of 2021 were the real “victims” of Covid-19 insofar as teaching in their Grade 11 year was almost completely via remote learning platforms or more traditional distance learning methodologies. Their Grade 12 school year too was substantially disrupted. Such is the spirit of the education community in schools that write the NSC with the IEB, that learners, teachers, school management and parents pulled together to ensure an impressive 98,39% pass rate, with all successful candidates gaining entry to tertiary study. 89,2% of the passing cohort achieved entry to university study in South Africa with a substantial number of candidates gaining entry to universities abroad. Flying the South African flag was Sazi Bongwe from St John’s College who was accepted for study at the prestigious Ivy League institution, Harvard. He is not the first South African student to gain entry to this institution and he certainly won’t be the last. The list of universities across the world that accept successful candidates who have offered the NSC through the IEB is extensive and impressive. Ex Africa semper aliquid novi - From Africa always something new “Already in the first century Pliny the Elder had labelled it a commonly known expression and its popularity in later centuries is attested by Erasmus and Rabelais amonst others. It seems therefore, firstly, that from antiquity onwards Africa never ceased to amazethrough external moderation of examination papers and independent verification of the IEB’s own internal quality assurance mechanisms. This additional layer of oversight serves to assure students and parents that their ISC and Further Studies results have been awarded after a credible, valid and reliable assessment process. The IEB understands that in some areas, knowledge is gained through experience rather than the traditional manner in which academic knowledge is gained. With experiential knowledge, there is no specific discipline-linked standard that needs to be maintained as per a written examination in Science or History for example. Rather, the assessment process is designed to provide the learner with an experience that is assessed not for its academic rigour or correctness, but rather as a means of evaluating the extent to which a student has engaged with the experience. Learning through experience is valuable in that it enables learners to engage more meaningfully with softer skills, rather than only hard academics. The IEB has a formal experiential learning process in research methodology, whereby the student participates in all phases of formal research to understand how knowledge is “made”; the rubrics focus on the student’s understanding of the purpose of each aspect of research and the necessity for ethical practices in undertaking research. The IEB also provides an opportunity for Collaborative Problem Solving with teams of students from different schools who do not know one another and meet on the day of the assessment on a computer platform, designed specifically for this purpose. There is pre-assessment material with which students engage and on the day of assessment, the individual team members log onto the platform and engage with the problem that is posed. The solutions that the teams come up with are not assessed or ranked against one another - it is the extent to which the students collaborate to come up with a workable solution to the given problem that is monitored and evaluated. Yes, indeed, always from Africa, something new. These explorations with sometimes imperfect assessment techniques enable our assessment professionals to explore the field of assessment beyond the strict boundaries imposed by high stakes examinations. This is only possible at the IEB because of our Board who challenge the organisation to go into uncomfortable spaces and make our road by walking responsibly, ethically and with enthusiasm. The quality of the staff at the IEB ensures that the organisation rises to the challenge. It remains for me to thank the many educational institutions - in schooling, in adult education, in cyberspace - who have chosen the IEB as their assessment partner. We value the trust you have placed in us. Anne Oberholzer - CEOThis organisational report highlights the IEB’s commitment to listen to its partners, hear the message, process and plan to accommodate them and finally make every effort to meet their needs. Africa is fast becoming a continent of innovation and development. Hence it is not surprising that it is beginning to claim its place at the table of global education. Indeed, for too long Africa has taken its lead in education from other continents and has not exploited its strengths and uniqueness in the education of its own children. Origin of the ISC In response to a change in policy from the South African government, whereby the NSC could no longer be offered outside the borders of South Africa, the IEB was motivated to develop an international qualification to accommodate those schools outside South Africa, that have been registered with the IEB since its inception 1989. Because this qualification would need to be offered in Eswatini, Mozambique and Namibia i.e., across different countries, that qualification would have to be “international” in nature. The outcome was the birth of the International Secondary Certificate (IEB ISC) under the banner of IEB International. It is designed for students entering their final phase of schooling and on successful completion, their certified achievement serves as a school-leaving certificate and an indicator of preparedness for further study at the tertiary level. The ISC Curriculum and Assessment The ISC qualification, its curriculum and subject curricula have been designed to support the IEB's Intentional Educational Beliefs, to develop students who are: •critical users of information •ethical reasoners •problem solvers •creative and reflective thinkers •lifelong students •society members respectful of diversity •active citizens who are committed to upholding democratic principles and the wellbeing of all people The curriculum references perspectives, cultures, associated values and languages that have their roots in Africa, so that understanding of key concepts is embedded in contexts familiar to students. Language study accommodates languages familiar to the students and where practicable, the home language of students is used in teaching, learning and assessment. The IEB assesses this curriculum with specific emphasis on higher order academic skills. Built into the qualification are Further Studies courses aimed at extending talented students with specific areas of interest and aptitude, in key disciplines. These provide a more in- depth exploration of the discipline of study with the expectation of increased understanding and capability. The IEB believes that it is through the assessment of the curriculum that its true worth and value as an educating tool can be exploited. The way in which a question is asked will either encourage the ‘opening up’ of young minds to see new ideas and possibilities or it will focus the mind narrowly onto the facts taught and presumably learnt during the year; the approach in assessment can either offer learners an opportunity to express their own opinions and show that they have used sound thinking skills and a reliable knowledge base to come to their conclusions or at the other end of the scale, it will encourage the re-gurgitation of learnt opinions. The IEB aims to harness the positive impact of good assessment techniques on learning and teaching and through its instruments, open the minds of teachers and learners to the higher order thinking skills encouraged in the curriculum and required in our modern world. Schools have indicated to the IEB that parents choose IEB educational institutions because of the IEB school leaving examination that focuses on critical thinking and problem-solving skills of students, preparing them well for the rigours of tertiary study. The IEB has a reputation for consistently applying rigour in the development of assessment and examination question papers that reflect the standard that the IEB claims to maintain. The IEB has efficient and effective assessment systems that are underpinned by sound values and the internalisation of such values by all who participate in the management and administration of assessments. Schools offering the ISC The IEB draws its candidates from the independent school sector. Schools are required to abide by legal obligations of the state authorities under which they operate. Before a school is registered as an examination centre, the IEB conducts its own approval process, which includes a consideration not only of the facilities but also of the processes of teaching and learning, to assure the public that the schools offering the ISC are committed to offering students the very best standards of teaching and support, both in terms of physical resources and learning support. Contracted educational institutions are required to commit to a formal process of quality improvement. Quality assurance: Stellenbosch University Unit of International Credentialing (SU-UIC) “If you believe in unlimited quality and act in all your business dealings with total integrity, the rest will take care of itself”. Frank Perdue New schools wanting to write the ISC are required not only to meet the legal conditions to operate in their home country, they are expected to undergo a thorough vetting process by the IEB. This is to ensure that schools associated with the ISC have the infra-structure, personnel and sustainability to support the provision of an educational experience that is not only of quality but also affordable - value for money.Principals of schools in Eswatini that will write the first ISC examinations in 2022 Principals of schools in Namibia that will write the first ISC examinations in 2022 In a world of fake news, there is a need to assure society that quality assessment is of primary concern to the IEB. To that end the IEB has established an arms-length relationship with Stellenbosch University, a well-established university with an international reputation for quality education. The SU-UIC conducts external quality assurance processes for the ISC. These quality assurance processes ensures that prescriptions for examination procedures and processes, including external moderation of examination papers to ensure adherence to standards, are in place and implemented as required. In addition, appropriate feedback is provided to educational institutions that offer the ISC. Hence a school-leaver examined against the ISC of the IEB receives a certificate with results endorsed by SU-UIC, once it is satisfied that its quality assurance processes have been fully met. Recognition of the ISC and its successful students Regional recognition of the qualification is a priority. The IEB approached Universities South Africa (USAf) to review the qualification for entry to tertiary study at South African institution of higher learning. The following is an extract from their letter to the IEB: A candidate with the ISC “will have met the minimum requirements for admission to degree study programmes in South African Public and Private Higher Education Institutions; •The IEB ISC with Merit; or •The IEB ISC (Advanced). In addition, a candidate who obtains the IEB ISC will have met the minimum requirements for higher certificate, diploma or degree studies in South African Public and Private Higher Education Institutions.” This means that successful IEB ISC students from outside South Africa will enjoy the opportunity to access South African institutions of higher learning, including universities. In 2021 the UK National Information Centre for global qualifications and skills (UK ENIC) conducted an evaluation of the International Secondary Certificate qualification. UK ENIC is the national agency appointed by the UK government to provide official information and expert opinion on international qualifications in the UK. The following is from their report after the benchmarking of the ISC: England, Wales and Northern Ireland - Each 20-credit subject passed is at least comparable to GCSE grades A*-C, provided a mark of 50% / D has been obtained. Further Studies (30- or 36-credit) subjects are considered comparable to the overall GCE Advanced (A) level standard. Australia - The International Secondary Certificate is considered comparable to the Australian Senior Secondary Certificate of Education standard. In New South Wales, this level is represented by the Higher School Certificate.Next >