Contentious ANAs to now be written every three years

This follows the scrapping of the Annual National Assessments - a contentious issue between the department and teacher unions for some time - leading the department to review its decision on them. 

The department says the first of the new three-year assessments will take place in 2018. 

Spokesperson Elijah Mhlanga says the new assessments will have three focus areas.

"We know that in its nature it will be diagnostic. Another one of its elements is systemic. And the other one will be summative," he said.

There's been mixed reaction from some teacher unions.

Sadtu's Nomusa Cembi has described the decision to cancel the old ANAs as a victory.

"We are going to be writing it in 2018, as we had initially requested for that. And it is an answer to our call, because we've been calling for ANA not to be written on an annual basis," she said. 

While, Natu's Allan Thompson has criticised the move - saying they want a better education system which will yield positive results:

"We have never agreed on whether it must be done once after three years or once after two years. There were different suggestions and ideas that we were trying to work out with [the] department - so that we reach consensus," he said.