How do you feel about using machine-learning tools as part of the DDD Dashboard? Scan the code with your mobile phone or click here to respond.  
   
 
  ON THE
DDD CALENDAR
   
  UPCOMING TRAINING:
  From a fellow official's expert advice to an intro to the new NSC insights, plus a login and navigation refresher, the next three weeks are loaded with learning opportunities. Click any link below to learn more or to book.
     
 
  TOPIC: A colleague’s view: Advice from a fellow education official on how to analyse results using the Learner Chart report. This includes turn-around strategies, shared expertise and usage tips.
   
 
   
 
   
  TOPIC: New NSC & Bachelor insights: An introduction to the new NSC insights available for testing on the demo dashboard, and how to use them to identify which Grade 12 learners need targeted support in order to improve their overall NSC and Bachelor achievement outcomes.
   
 
   
 
   
  TOPIC: Login and navigation: If you are new to the DDD Dashboard, or haven't logged in for a while, join this session for a detailed refresher on how to access DDD, log in successfully, and navigate the main sections of the dashboard.
   
 
 
 
 
  DATA NEWS
AND UPDATES
   
  Mpumalanga: Data quality first, data usage next!
   
 
   
  Mpumalanga officials have spent the past few months focusing on the importance of data quality. Seen at training sessions are (clockwise from left): Gert Sibande EMIS Head, Mr W Barnard; DDD's Thabiso Malele with an official from Bohlabela District; and circuit managers from Manzania and Ngwenya districts.
 
 
     
 
   
                     
 

WHAT ARE THEY?
A quick summary

The functionality includes two NSC reports – planning tools that give an early warning of which Grade 12 learners are at risk of not achieving their NSC, and which (with extra help) are within reach of a Bachelor pass.

    HOW THEY WORK
Need-to-know

Insights are based on current SA-SAMS data submitted to DDD, and show what is likely to happen if no action is taken. The reports are specifically designed to help you change these outcomes for the better. 		 

TRY A DEMO
An access guide

You can try out the new NSC reports and share feedback, by accessing the anonymised demo versions of the new functionality, via the website. To find and navigate the demo, here are some guidelines. 		 
                     
 
     
 
         
  HOW IT WORKS: MORE SUNSHINE, LESS GUESSWORK  
 
 

Every morning, millions of people check a weather app before leaving home. We trust those forecasts — not because they're always right, but because we understand how they work. Meteorologists feed decades of historical weather data into a model. The model finds patterns. When similar conditions appear today, it says: based on everything we've seen before, here's what's likely coming.

That is machine learning. And it's one of the technologies behind DDD’s latest NSC insights functionality – now available for testing on the demo dashboard.

This new functionality was trained on more than four million historical Grade 12 results. It learned the patterns between what learners looked like during the school year (report marks, attendance, age relative to grade, gender) and what their final NSC outcomes turned out to be. When it looks at a current learner's data, it finds past learners who looked similar and says: based on what happened to them, here's what's likely for this one.

And much like a weather forecast, it gets sharper over time. Each term, as new learner performance data flows in from SA-SAMS, these NSC insights are refreshed. By Term 3, the picture is considerably clearer than it was in Term 1.

Unlike a weather forecast, however, you are able to do something to change that picture, by putting targeted interventions in place that help to create a more positive outcome for those learners.

You may have heard concerns about AI systems that produce wrong or invented information. The new NSC tools are not that kind of technology. They don't generate text or invent answers. Every output is a calculation grounded in real, verified, historical data and tested against known results, with very small margins of error. Not an opinion – but a forecast. And one worth acting on.

Try it out and tell us what you think! Click here for more info.

  
         
 
       
 
    “HOW I’M GOING TO USE THESE NEW TOOLS”
Planning for clearer skies, one term at a time
 
 

She could see the learners, she just couldn't see what they needed. Until now.

Nomaledi Mbambisa knows OR Tambo Inland district well: the geography, the resource constraints, and the weight of matric season in a district where every Bachelor pass represents a learner whose future just widened.

What she didn't have, until this year, was a way to see, prior to exams, which learners were actually within reach of that pass, the subjects that were the bottleneck and the schools that needed support most urgently.

Then she tested the DDD Dashboard's new NSC insights functionality.

In this edition of DataPoint, Mbambisa — one of a select group of DDD users who recently tested the functionality — shares how she plans to use the two NSC reports once they go live, to build sharper, evidence-based interventions: from identifying her highest-risk schools to pinpointing the specific learners who are one subject level away from a Bachelor pass.

It's practical. It's step-by-step. And it might change how you approach your winter camps this year. Click here to read the full article.

 
           
           
 

To share feedback on
this newsletter email:
Communication@newleaders.co.za		       For DDD technical
assistance contact:
help@dbedashboard.co.za		        
     
   
 
     
 

dbedashboard   The DDD programme is an initiative of the Department of
Basic Education, in collaboration with the Michael & Susan Dell
Foundation and New Leaders Foundation.		  
     

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