Two recent papers by RESEP’s Martin Gustafsson look into, firstly, the historical trends between nations in children’s reading and mathematics performance and, secondly, their future projections. These are based on three international evaluations: PIRLS, PISA and LLECE.
The reduction of class size is frequently argued to be a relatively simple, cost-effective way to improve learner outcomes in a wide array of contexts. However, methodological concerns regarding the appropriate use of observational data and endogeneity have led to a lack of consensus on this relationship in the literature.
This paper will aim to answer three questions: (1) Are girls absent from school during their periods? (2) If so, how large is the effect of menstruation on absenteeism? (3) Do the effects differ by socio-economic status (SES)?
Socio-economic status and educational outcomes are strongly linked across countries and education systems. However, a growing body of research documents the existence of students from disadvantaged socio-economic backgrounds who manage to achieve exceptional academic results.
This paper analyses the SA-SAMS school administration data that the Michael and Susan Dell Foundation in partnership with the Department of Basic Education collects quarterly from schools in order to assess its usefulness for better understanding the school system.
Over the period 2016 to 2018, RESEP were engaged in a study titled “Leadership for Literacy” funded by the ESRC/DFID. The project resulted in the collection of new data on reading in three African languages. In this research impact brief published by the REAL Centre, University of Cambridge, and The Impact Initiative, the impact of this work to establish tentative benchmarks in African languages is highlighted.
RESEP led an introductory training course on quantitative data analysis for researchers in education in Stellenbosch from 11 to 15 November. The course was attended by 29 participants working in education, and included graduate students, researchers, NGO memebers and policymakers from across South Africa. Funding was provided by the Allan Gray Orbis Foundation Endowment as part of RESEP’s Early Learning Programme.
Wills, G., 2019. School leadership and management: Identifying linkages with learning and structural inequalities. In South African Schooling: The Enigma of Inequality (pp. 301-320). Springer, Cham.
Taylor, N., Wills, G. and Hoadley, U., 2019. Addressing the ‘leadership conundrum ’through a mixed methods study of school leadership for literacy. Research in Comparative and International Education, 14(1), pp.30-53.
Abstract: This paper investigates a disruption hypothesis that student learning is lost as a direct consequence of teacher strike action in South Africa. At face…
Book: Improving Early Literacy Outcomes Chapter: Assessing Early Literacy Outcomes in Burkina Faso and Senegal: Using DHS and PASEC to Combine Access and Quality Authors: Nic…
Spaull, N. (2019). Learning to Read and Write for Meaning and Pleasure. In Spaull, N. & Comings, J. (Eds), Improving Early Literacy Outcomes. Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill
Spaull, N. & Pretorius, E. (2019). Still Falling at the First Hurdle: Examining Early grade Reading in South Africa. In Spaull, N., & Jansen, J. (Eds), South African Schooling: The Enigma of Inequality. Springer Nature. Cham, Switzerland.
Spaull, N. (2019). Equity: A Price Too High to Pay? In Spaull, N., & Jansen, J. (Eds), South African Schooling: The Enigma of Inequality. Springer Nature. Cham, Switzerland.
Wills, G. and Hofmeyr, H., 2019. Academic resilience in challenging contexts: Evidence from township and rural primary schools in South Africa. International Journal of Educational Research, 98, pp.192-205.
(Note: this story originally appeared on the Stellenbosch University website) Even in high-poverty contexts, some children manage to achieve consistently good academic results despite…
On 12 and 13 September, RESEP held its fifth Quantitative Education Research Conference at the Stias Conference Centre in Stellenbosch. As in past years, it was attended by about 100 researchers, senior policymakers and stakeholders from all over South Africa. Funding was provided by the Zenex Foundation, the Michael and Susan Dell Foundation and RESEP itself. The conference was preceded by a smaller workshop on 11 September for emerging researchers in education.
In 2016, RESEP published the “Binding Constraints” report discussing the importance of reading for meaning by grade 3. Three years later, President Cyril Ramaphosa echoes this sentiment in his State of the Nation (SONA) address in 2019.
RESEP hosted a two-day workshop at STIAS from 4 to 5 July 2019, with participation from key academics and policymakers engaged in early learning research or implementation of improvement programmes. The topics covered include early childhood development and related programmes to improve the quality of grade R and ECD service delivery, assessment of children before they reach school-going age, reading trajectories in early grades and programmes to improve reading outcomes in school.
RESEP researcher Nic Spaull unpacks the implications of the 2019 South African Budget, with a focus on education in particular.
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