18 Sep 2022

Members of the Southern Africa Association for Educational Assessment (SAAEA) have been implored to demonstrate commitment and to resuscitate the organisation’s culture.

The association is an assessment body made of member countries of Lesotho, Botswana, Namibia, South Africa, Eswatini, Tanzania, Zimbabwe, Malawi and Zambia. 

It was established to provide a platform for test developers and administrators, curriculum specialists and researchers to exchange good practices of conducting educational assessments within the SADC sub-region.

Speaking during the association’s executive committee meeting hosted by Botswana Examinations Council (BEC) in Maun on Saturday, SAAEA chairperson, Dr Moreetsi Thobega said members knew the ideals of the organisation and its mandate which was all about educational assessment.

He said past, current and latest trends in examinations and assessments was what the SAAEA culture and spirit stood for. 

He noted that in the past they used to have robust training sessions, bilateral benchmarking visits as well as annual conferences.

He said since the 2019 conference, they had been receiving justifications for not hosting the next conference than reasons to host.

Dr Thobega questioned the commitment of member countries and individuals, saying annual conferences were the life of association as all innovations, achievements and the assessment knowledge created were reported, discussed and developed further at conferences.

He challenged members to commit themselves to host the 2023 conference, saying they needed the pledge more than ever because Tanzania, who were supposed to host this year’s conference, had advanced many reasons why they could not host in the next five years.

He noted that in the global outlook, SAAEA formed the Southern African Chapter of the Association for Educational Assessment in Africa (AEAA), which was an African Chapter of the International Association for Educational Assessment (IAEA).

He, however, said there were loose relationships anchored on common interest than anything else. 

He added that SAAEA was an independent entity that could determine its path of growth without any limitation from the continental or international umbrella bodies.

For that reason, Dr Thobega, who is also BEC chief executive officer, proposed that the SAAEA constitution should be looked at. 

He argued that the constitution was narrow and needed to be broadened and made current, adding that the world had moved on and SAAEA could not afford to remain behind.

He said one area that signified SAAEA’s independence from the umbrella organisation was the way it was structured, noting that there were two governance structures that sustained the organisation.

He said the structures were the SAAEA executive committee which comprised of the chief executive officers and directors of member examination boards and the SAAEA research forum. 

He noted that the forum was an operational wing of the organisation and that it led the implementation of strategic initiatives and programmes. 

He also noted that it was currently chaired by Malawi.

“I count on you and our research forum to resuscitate the SAAEA,” he said. 

He partly blamed COVID-19 for the low energy levels but said he was beginning to question the commitment at individual level.

He informed the meeting that the areas for research that they would be discussing were key to their success and urged members to remember that they were operating in the Fourth Industrial Revolution space where there were opportunities to harness Information Communication Technology (ICT) in teaching and learning transactions.

He also informed association members that President Dr Mokgweetsi Masisi was leading a reform programme known as the Reset Agenda, which comprised of five priorities. 

Among them, Dr Thobega cited the digitisation of all systems in the economy. 

He said in pursuit of the ideal, BEC had already digitised the authoring of question papers as well as the processing and accessing of examination results. Ends