In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Western Cape Education Department’s (WCED) 2023 Back-on-Track (BoT) initiative is proving to be a groundbreaking step towards educational recovery. This R1.2 billion programme has targeted critical learning gaps in mathematics and language, focusing on Grades 4, 7, and 8. The results, independently evaluated by RESEP, reveal remarkable gains in learning outcomes.
This report leverages data mainly derived from the South African School Administration Management System (SA-SAMS), including a unique longitudinal version of the Data Driven Districts (DDD) data for three provinces as well as the Learner Unit Record Information Tracking System (Lurits) data and National Senior Certificate (matric) examination data to analyse the dynamics of the South African education system in the aftermath of the Covid-19 pandemic. It provides a detailed analysis of learner flows, assessment strategies, and teacher dynamics, offering valuable insights for policymakers and educational stakeholders and illustrating how such data can be used in education policy and planning.
In this note by Ursula Hoadley, she tracks curriculum and assessment policy changes over three years (2020 to 2023) in South Africa in response to the COVID-19 pandemic and school closures. Some changes were made to the national CAPS curriculum documents in the form of trimming content (2020), identifying ‘fundamental’ knowledge (2020), and reviewing subject content (2022).
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