Using Data to Help Learners Succeed with South Africa’s Curriculum

Nishana Parsad needs quick, seamless access to teaching, learning, and assessment data for her province’s nearly 3,100 schools. As Chief Education Specialist for Curriculum in Gauteng, Ms. Parsad uses this data to develop corresponding insights that showcase how each school in her province is mastering…

Data-driven education SA’s success story

Although much of the focus in preceding weeks has been on the recent announcement of the National Senior Certificate (NSC) results, in which the class of 2018 obtained a 78.2% national pass rate, up from 75.1% in 2017, many stories of extraordinary progress being made in South Africa’s basic education system remain untold…

Data Driven District Program Empowers Educators Across South Africa

When you ask Eric Siyolo Mayekiso — a teacher in the Eastern Cape of South Africa — why he became a teacher, his answer is simple: He wanted to help people. He chose this work in the hopes of making a difference in the lives of as many children as possible.

Innovation In Education: Creating Technology And Processes That Work

Innovation is at the heart of the country’s growth agenda, and it has been identified that the rise of new technologies would have a major impact on South Africa.

President Cyril Ramaphosa last year said, “We see a country that has embraced the benefits of technology for economic growth, social development, and for more effective governance. We are producers of knowledge and drivers of technological progress.”

Accountability Is Essential To Sustainable Improvement In The Education System

Accountability is a cornerstone of the modern education system. It holds those within the system responsible for their actions — as well as inactions — and functions to identify any opportunities and shortcomings. Accountability is essential in order for any meaningful improvement to take place within the system.

The Department of Basic Education’s Data Driven Districts (DDD) programme empowers its users to have conversations around accountability that are made possible through the availability and accessibility of school-level data from the South African School Administration and Management System (SA-SAMS).

Managing The Shift To A Data-Driven Education System

It’s often said that change is the only constant, and this has arguably never been truer than it is now, with today’s world — and the technology that has become such an intrinsic part of it that is — evolving faster than ever before.

The Department of Basic Education’s Data Driven Districts (DDD) programme collects school-level data from the South African School Administration and Management System (SA-SAMS), providing detailed visual metrics on millions of learners, improving the quality of teaching in thousands of schools across the country. This programme is completely changing the way we collect, analyze, and use vital educational data, allowing users to develop more targeted, focused learner intervention strategies to better support learners.