The 2024 DBE Data Summit, held on September 18th-19th 2024, brought together stakeholders from education, government, and the private sector to explore the evolving role of data in South African education. The event was of real interest to Edulution due to our focus on data-driven classroom coaching and ongoing impact evaluation.
While keynote presentations laid out broader visions, the real focus of the event was in the collaborative break-away sessions, where participants tackled specific issues facing the education system.
Four Key Observations from the Summit
Standardised testing: The Director-General mentioned plans to introduce globally comparable standardised tests as part of South Africa's National Development Plan (NDP). While this was not a central theme throughout the summit, it remains a vital issue to address in the future.
Mobile access for teachers: A potentially transformative idea emerged - enabling teachers to access all necessary tools and information via mobile apps. The vision ties in well with existing educational platforms, like Edulution, which already support mobile functionality. In addition, we are currently developing a mobile app to house an LMS for in-field micro-training, and allow for a range of data capturing to take place.
Challenges with unique identifiers: Delegates repeatedly raised the challenge of tracking Learners as they move through the education system. The rollout of Lurits numbers in the SA-SAMS system has made progress, but further collaboration with Home Affairs is needed to improve Learner tracking across schools. At Edulution, we aspire to tracking learning persistence in those that have left our programme and moved on to high-school.
Relevant reporting: We heard about the importance of being able to report to different stakeholder groups with different levels of detail. For example, District Heads are interested in aggregate metrics for the Learner body as a whole, whereas the schools are interested in the progress of each individual Learner. We must give people the right information they need to make a difference!
Moving Forward...
The DBE Data Summit revealed significant challenges in South Africa’s education data landscape, but also showcased promising initiatives already underway. Ongoing efforts to standardise data practices, incorporate social data, and enhance trust in the system are steps in the right direction. Edulution is reinspired to continue generating actionable data in its learning sessions, and to robustly analyse this in the spirit of continuous improvement.
Work with us! We are looking to partner with academics, researchers and data practitioners to make effective use of our 10+ years of Learner data. Contact info@edulution.org for more information.
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