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.
In the quest to understand and address educational challenges, particularly in the realm of mathematics performance, the exploration of underlying microdata becomes paramount. Martin Gustafsson’s…
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.
Ultimately, learners with disabilities should be accommodated at schools in their neighbourhood, where they should have access to all programmes of support (Screening, Identification, Assessment and Support Policy, 2014).
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).
Data quality – its accuracy, completeness, reliability, relevance and timeliness – is crucial for proper analysis, administration and policymaking. Data quality was therefore of great…
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…
A group of 16 RESEP researchers is currently engaged in a 3-year project focusing on the incoming wave of teacher retirements.
The evidence discussed in this brief confirms that learning losses in South Africa have been large. Covid-19 has disrupted South African education in significant ways, with enduring impacts for the system (including altered enrolment patterns) and for children’s development.
Due to the pandemic, South African school children have missed at least three-quarters of a school year in the past two calendar years. That has…
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.
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…
The report analyses school flows, repetition, and dropout using a novel analysis of school-based assessments, and how well these predict future performance and learner flows. An important finding is that the high repetition and dropout rates in high schools imply an internal efficiency rate of only 49% (measured in terms of the years of enrolment in high school for every matric pass).
This report explores the state of inclusive education in South Africa using data from the School Monitoring Survey in 2017 to assess disability support, the accessibility of schools and learning environments, and the adequacy of teacher training for inclusion.
This is a summary report that presents the key findings and approach used in identifying early grade reading benchmarks and thresholds in three Nguni languages: isiZulu, isiXhosa and siSwati.
This report presents the key findings and approach used in identifying early grade reading benchmarks and thresholds in three Nguni languages: isiZulu, isiXhosa and siSwati.
This brief replicates UNESCO’s calculations, to determine whether South African teachers’ wages are comparable with those in Denmark. The level of teacher wages so determined was only USD71, which is similar to Japan and Italy, but even this seems unrealistically high. UNESCO uses purchasing power parity (PPP) exchange rates for converting teacher pay across countries to dollars – this is where the problem might be. As an alternative strategy to assess the adequacy of teacher pay in international comparison, we use teacher household assets instead of compensation as a proxy for teacher living standards. This results in findings which are considered to be plausible, as South Africa is then comparable with developing countries such as Botswana, Malaysia and Philippines.
This paper describes the partial return to school that occurred during June and July, drawing mainly on the second wave of the NIDSCRAM survey. To what extent was there alignment between the grades that were gazetted to return in June and July and actual school attendance rates by children across the grades? How worried were parents and guardians about sending their children back to school and how did this vary across society?
New evidence suggests that over four months after the closure of early childhood development (ECD) programmes on 18 March 2020, the ECD sector is likely to be operating at less than a quarter of its pre-lockdown levels. Of the 38% of respondents from the new NIDS-CRAM survey reporting that children aged 0-6 in their households had attended ECD programmes before the lockdown in March, only 12% indicated that children had returned to these programmes by mid-July, well after programmes were allowed to reopen
The report serves as a background paper to UNESCO’s 2020 Global Education Monitoring Report (GEMR).
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