From 21-22 August 2024, Resep hosted its 8th annual Quantitative Education Research (QER) conference at STIAS, Stellenbosch. Among the more than 100 attendees were academics, students, government officials, NGOs representatives and other stakeholders. Speakers, chairs and participants collectively provided an overview of key trends in South African education and profiled new research. In this synopsis of the 2-day programme, some key insights across all presentations are considered under eight emerging conference themes.
This document, “Public Expenditure on Education in South Africa, 1987/8 to 1991/2: An Analysis of the Data,” provides a comprehensive review of government spending on education over a crucial five-year period. It meticulously examines the allocation and utilisation of funds within the South African education sector, offering insights into the financial priorities and policy decisions during this time.
This Report focuses on education and training systems and the structure of schooling. Aspects of education planning, finance, and management are discussed in both this and the separate report on Governance, and there are various aspects of the organisation of education discussed below which are specific concerns of other research group reports.
In this research note, Emma Whitelaw and Nicola Branson from the University of Cape Town (UCT), examine the association between National Senior Certificate (NSC) performance and National Benchmark Test (NBT) scores among applicants to UCT. They find that during COVID-19 disrupted years, applicants’ admission point scores, derived from NSC grades, rose relative to NBT scores which remained similar since the onset of COVID-19.
Basic Education Lekgotla 2024: Recent South African trends and what they mean for the future
Basic Education Lekgotla 2024: Recent South African trends and what they mean for the future
Dive into the evolving landscape of basic education in South Africa with Martin Gustafsson’s illuminating presentation from March 2024. Titled “Recent South African Trends and…
In this Covid-Generation working paper, Bianca Böhmer and Gabrielle Wills contribute new evidence on pandemic effects on reading scores and inequalities in reading in South Africa through an in-depth analysis of data from the 2016 and 2021 Progress in International Reading Literacy Study (PIRLS) – a Grade 4 reading comprehension assessment.