Learner assessment and standard setting, has always been an issue of discussion, not only among professionals but also in public. Broadfoot (2002:5) indicates that the search for an unambiguous and dependable way of measuring “ability” is indeed one of the enduring themes of assessment research in the 20th century. Further to this, the tension between scientific aspirations of assessment technologies to represent an objective reality and the unavoidable subjectivities injected by the human focus of these technologies is very much in evidence in most countries (Davies, 2002; 185 – 204). Indeed, as Moss & Schutz (2001: 37 – 70), argue, it is the process of generating standards, and in particular, the possibility of extremes that do not conform, that is an essential dynamic of education quality and innovation. This is especially true in the South African context, where the emergence of a new democratic state ushered changes in various social arenas including education, where “the dialectical dying out of the old and the birth of the new” (Lubisi & Murphy, 2002:255), has to account for the diversity in standards that still exist. The consequent introduction of a new exit level examination, the National Senior Certificate (NCS) at the FET-phase in 2008 complicated matters even further and questions are raised about standards and standard-setting.

The principle question really is, whether the current “equating” procedures (the so-called, “standardization” of examination marks), inherent in the previous Senior Certificate (Matric) Examination, can be applied to the new outcomes based NCS with its envisaged progressive moderation processes and how can the assessment and quality assuring bodies ensure that the assessment results are credible, objective and politically legitimate? The fact that marks are adjusted during the resulting process is not readily accepted by the public, in spite of the levels of sophistication developed over the years.