Johannesburg, 24 May 2006
The State IT Agency (SITA) and the Department of Education have revealed plans to deploy a national centralised system to allow the department to better monitor the performance of high school students.
SITA called for interested industry players to submit information on the deployment of such a system on Friday, and the request for information (RFI) invitation will remain open until 2 June.
A spokesperson at SITA, who did not want to be named, says student-monitoring systems are deployed in various countries around the world. "Research was conducted, and the [South African education] department felt they should also follow suit.
"We would need to tailor the system to fit our requirements in SA," he adds.
He was unable to put an expected value to the project, or suggest when a tender for deployment may be issued.
The system, he explains, will facilitate the department in tracking the academic records of all South African scholars in grade 10 to 12 - the final three years of high school.
Yet to be finalised
According to the RFI document, the system will be designed to capture year marks and exam marks, and facilitate the creation of national exam timetables, matric exam registration, the appointments of markers and moderators, the release of students' results, and the compilation of statistics around the results.
The document further explains that schools do not have access to the current system, but it is required that they be able to use the new system. The requirements regarding hardware, networks and other components have not been finalised yet.
"The system must be Web-enabled. The fact that not all schools will have the necessary infrastructure must be kept in mind. The system must also be able to be accessed by using a normal Internet facility, such as an Internet caf'e," the RFI states.
"Although the system must be Web-enabled, no software has to be carried on school level."
It is also stipulated that data must be carried or stored on the existing mainframe. It is a specific requirement that the requested new national senior certificate examination system must use the mainframe either as a database server or super server. The technical architecture will be made available at a later stage. SITA will still host the electronic system.
Last year a total of 508 363 full-time candidates wrote the senior certificate, according to minister of education, Naledi Pandor, in her speech at the release of the 2005 matric results.
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