RESEP held its 7th annual conference on Quantitative Education Research (QER) from 5-6 September 2023 at STIAS, Stellenbosch University.
September 24, 2023 PDF
RESEP education research has a strong emphasis on empirical research in a broad range of policy-related issues including teacher knowledge and training, early-childhood outcomes, accountability, socioeconomic status, and school effectiveness. Policy application is one of the central aims of the research.
Education
Measuring learning outcomes (what learners know and can do) has been a contested terrain for many education systems and researchers, despite universal acknowledgement that assessment plays an important role in curriculum implementation (UNESCO 2013; Darling-Hammond & Wentworth 2010; Department of Education [DoE] 1995). Venkat and Sapire (this volume) refer to the ‘essential circuits’ of education and the
link between the curriculum, teaching practice, and assessment. Our focus is strictly on the Foundation Phase (FP), and where we refer to a specific subject, mathematics is our first concern. This chapter, therefore, only makes passing reference to the major external assessment, the National Senior Certificate (NSC) or matric examination.
July 11, 2023 PDF
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).
May 16, 2023 PDF
COVID-19 caused disruptions to schooling on an unprecedented scale. Emerging evidence indicate sthat these disruptions impacted schooling in South Africa in many ways, from shortened curricula to significant learning losses occurring over the two years of the pandemic (Hoadley, 2020; Ardington,
Wills and Kotze, 2021; Van der Berg et al., 2022). This report constitutes the first attempt at investigating how these outcomes affected broader system performance in terms of key outcomes such as learner flows through the system, matric results, and performance in school-based assessments (SBAs). The report also sheds light on some important other education issues.
February 2, 2023 PDF
Data quality – its accuracy, completeness, reliability, relevance and timeliness – is crucial for proper analysis, administration and policymaking. Data quality was therefore of great…
January 2, 2023 PDF
RESEP is engaged in a 3-year project (2022-24) to track learning losses, repetition, dropout and school completion patterns among school cohorts impacted by COVID-19 disruptions…
December 19, 2022 PDF
A group of 16 RESEP researchers is currently engaged in a 3-year project focusing on the incoming wave of teacher retirements.
December 1, 2022 PDF
Three international testing programmes, including PIRLS, point to educational quality improvements in South Africa during the period 2002 to 2019. The gains were substantial, relative to the steepness of improvements seen in other countries. What lay behind these trends? National education quality trends are not easy to explain, and this is seldom attempted in a systematic manner.
July 15, 2022 PDF
An emerging interdisciplinary literature explores how kinship practices affect household resource allocation through efficiency of production and consumption. This paper focuses on a key gender norm – how a resource transfer to households affects school drop out of girls relative to boys, under different kinship practices.
July 15, 2022 PDF
By examining Grade 5 mathematics performance, this paper primarily investigates how learner performance for selected sub-samples relates to and is affected by, a select set of standard covariates
June 20, 2022 PDF
This research report was produced for the Department of Higher Education and Training (DHET) and the Department of Basic Education (DBE). The study was undertaken to assess demand for, and supply of, teachers in the public service, in order to better inform teacher training policy.
March 13, 2022 PDF
The South African economics of education has so far been largely silent on the role of non-cognitive skills in the learning process. This contrasts noticeably with an international literature that recognises non-cognitive skills as both an important input and outcome of education.
March 9, 2022 PDF
Events surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic threatened to undo 20 years of sustained expansion in access to early childhood care and education (ECCE) in South Africa. In this paper, we explore the underlying structural weaknesses in non-grade R ECCE provisioning that were exposed through the pandemic, and the strengths that have surfaced.
March 2, 2022 PDF
Introduction As a positive relationship between schools and education districts can help to secure school improvement and learning outcomes, we have explored the accountability arrangements…
February 17, 2022 PDF
To illustrate the performance of South Africa’s public school system, RESEP developed the below interactive map with the assistance of the Centre for Geographic Analysis at Stellenbosch University.
December 2, 2021 PDF
A PART OF THE ECD WORKING PAPER SERIES BETWEEN ILIFA LABANTWANA & RESEP. NO. ECD WP 003/2021
November 23, 2021 PDF
Enrolment in early childhood care and education programmes in South Africa: challenges and opportunities
A part of the ECD Working Paper Series between Ilifa Labantwana & Resep. No. ECD WP 002/2021The Ilifa-Resep ECD Working Paper Series is a collaboration between Ilifa Labantwana and Research on Socio-Economic Policy (RESEP) at Stellenbosch University. The working paper series aims to promote research that addresses the major systemic issues facing the ECD sector in South Africa.
November 23, 2021 PDF
Estimating the impact of five early childhood development programmes against a counterfactual
A part of the ECD Working Paper Series between Ilifa Labantwana & RESEP. No. ECD WP 001/2021The Ilifa-Resep ECD Working Paper Series is a collaboration between Ilifa Labantwana and Research on Socio-Economic Policy (Resep) at Stellenbosch University. The working paper series aims to promote research that addresses the major systemic issues facing the ECD sector in South Africa.
November 23, 2021 PDF
Voting and protest tendencies associated with changes in service delivery.
Citizens ought to hold the state accountable for service delivery. This is usually done through the power of the vote. Literature on democratic governance suggests that theoretically, when good quality public services are provided, citizens would continue to vote for the political party in power. Therefore, it is expected that the inverse would occur should poor quality public services be provided.Citizens ought to hold the state accountable for service delivery. This is usually done through the power of the vote. Literature on democratic governance suggests that theoretically, when good quality public services are provided, citizens would continue to vote for the political party in power. Therefore, it is expected that the inverse would occur should poor quality public services be provided.
October 27, 2021 PDF
Repetition is a serious problem in South Africa, and the Western Cape is no exception. In any given year between 2007 and 2019, repetition has ranged between 72,000 and 100,000, with notable enrolment bulges in grades 1, 4, 9 and 10. An important consequence of repetition—when not cancelled by dropout—is an increase in the proportion of children who are older than what would be considered appropriate for a particular grade. For example, at least a third of grade 12 learners in 2019 were overage.
June 28, 2021 PDF
