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School completion, the matric and post-school transitions in South Africa

Youth born just after the turn of democracy in 1994 have the highest years of completed education of any cohort in South African history. This is a trend worth celebrating. Yet South Africa’s educational progress is occurring alongside various constraints: slow economic growth; high and rising unemployment especially among youth; public finance constraints in expanding post-school education and training (PSET) opportunities; and growing concerns about mismatches between youth’s skills and the skills demanded in a changing world of work.

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January 11, 2025 By: Gabrielle Wills, Rebecca Selkirk and John Kruger PDF

The impact of the 2023 Back-on-Track Programme on learning: A Report to the Western Cape Education Department

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.

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December 19, 2024 By: Servaas van der Berg, Chris van Wyk & Chloé van Biljon PDF

An Overview of the 8th Annual QER Conference (21-22 August 2024)

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.

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September 16, 2024 By: Gabrielle WillsGabrielle Wills PDF

Assessment matters: What can we understand about the National Senior Certificate results during COVID-19 from university entrance exams?

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.

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May 25, 2024 By: Emma Whitelaw and Nicola Branson PDF

COVID-19 and inequality in reading outcomes in South Africa: PIRLS 2016 and 2021

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.

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December 23, 2023 By: Bianca Böhmer and Gabrielle Wills PDF

What rich new education data can tell us

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.

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December 22, 2023 By: Servaas van der Berg, Chris van Wyk, Martin Gustafsson, Herman Meyer, Abigail Chari, Chloé van Biljon, Adaiah Lilenstein, Rebecca Selkirk & Jessica McCallum PDF

Teacher demographic dividend provincial spotlight dialogue

On 25 May 2023, the Teacher Demographic Dividend (TDD) project hosted its first Provincial Spotlight Dialogue at The Blades, Pretoria. The dialogue was organised with the aim of receiving feedback on the new research findings in TDD’s national and provincial reports, as well as on a proposed national survey investigating new teacher placement and retention. The dialogue was attended by officials from the Provincial Education Departments (PEDs), Department of Basic Education (DBE), Department of Higher Education and Training (DHET) and National and Provincial Treasuries.

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June 2, 2023 By: RESEP Team PDF

COVID-19 and the South African curriculum policy response

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).

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May 16, 2023 By: Ursula Hoadley PDF

RESEP researchers launch Roots & Shoots study

RESEP researchers Heleen Hofmeyr and Nic Spaull recently launched the Roots & Shoots study, a longitudinal research study funded by the Mr Price Foundation that aims to track learners from when they first enter school until the end of the Foundation Phase.

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October 13, 2022 By: Heleen Hofmeyr PDF