Using three different studies on early grade reading from no-fee schools across in South Africa, this paper establishes short-term learning losses in reading for grade 2 and 4 students from under-resourced school contexts. We find that in 2020 grade 2 students lost between 57 % and 70 % of a year of learning relative to their pre-pandemic peers.
To prevent children from falling behind in the developmental sequence of reading, a shared vision of what reading success looks like is required. This paper provides the first benchmarks for early grade oral reading fluency that are necessary (albeit not sufficient) to read for meaning in three Nguni languages – isiZulu, isiXhosa and Siswati – belonging to the Southern Bantu family of African languages.
This paper examines whether school characteristics moderate the association between grit and reading achievement in a sample of Grade 6 learners in high-poverty contexts. The analysis makes use of data from 2383 learners distributed across 60 township and rural schools in three provinces of South Africa.
This policy brief compares educational progress among South African girls across the socioeconomic spectrum to shed some light on which girls are actually succeeding academically and which ones are being left behind.
Wills, G. and van der Berg, S., 2020. Measuring school leadership and management and linkages with literacy: Evidence from rural and township primary schools in South Africa. Educational Management Administration & Leadership, p.1741143220915923.
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.
ZUZE TL & JUAN A. (2018) School leadership and local learning contexts in South Africa. Educational Management Administration & Leadership.
JUAN A, ZUZE TL, HANNAN S, GOVENDER A & REDDY V. Bullies, victims and bully-victims in South African schools: Examining the risk factors. South African Journal of Education 2018; 3(8): S1-S10.
This paper explores methodological insights from a mixed methods study that aims to understand how school leaders promote literacy development in their schools.
Wills, G., Shepherd, D., and Kotze, J. (2018). Explaining the Western Cape performance paradox: An econometric analysis, in The Politics and Governance of Basic Education: A Tale of Two South African Provinces (Ed. Levy, B., Cameron, R., Hoadley, U. and Naidoo, V.): Oxford University Press.
Shepherd, D.L. (2018). Understanding language in education and grade 4 reading performance using a ‘natural experiment’ of Botswana and South Africa. Assessment in Education: Principles, Policy & Practice, Special Issue: Assessment of Reading in International Studies, 25(1), 87-106.
Gustafsson, M. and Taylor, S., 2018. Treating Schools to a New Administration: Evidence of the Impact of Better Practices in the System-Level Administration of Schools. Journal of African Economies, 27(5), pp.515-537.
Spaull, N. (2017) Who makes it into PISA? Understanding the impact of sample eligibility using Turkey as a case study (PISA 2003- PISA 2012). OECD Education Working Papers, No. 154, OECD Publishing, Paris. DOI: https://dx.doi.org/10.1787/41d175fc-en
Introduction The Millennium Development Goals aimed to achieve universal access to primary education by 2015. Attendance rates in South Africa remain high, with 97% of…
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