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A cat amongst pigeons? Challenges of quality assuring Life Orientation as a non-examination subject

Life Orientation is one of the 29 subjects of the National Curriculum Statement (NCS), which was introduced in Grade 10 in 2006, Grade 11 in 2007 and Grade 12 in 2008. Life Orientation is one of the four fundamental subjects within the seven subject package that learners must offer to qualify for the National Senior Certificate (NSC). 28 of the 29 subjects of the NCS are externally assessed in Grade 12. Life Orientation is the only subject that is completely internally assessed for certification purposes.The 100% internal assessment nature of the subject calls for a quality assurance process that would verify the fairness and validity of assessment tasks, and also ensure the credibility of the assessment processes and systems in the different assessment bodies. Umalusi adopted a two-pronged approach to the quality assurance of Life Orientation: audit of the implementation systems, and moderation of a sample of learner and educator portfolios.This paper highlights the challenges experienced by schools regarding the delivery of Life Orientation, and the challenges of quality assuring in the absence of standards against which toevaluate learner performance. This will reflect on the validity of Life Orientation as part of the NSC.

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