International research has shown that the quality of school leadership and management (SLM) is important for teaching and learning, particularly in schools where there is acute resource deprivation.
September 17, 2020 PDF
Working Papers
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?
September 12, 2020 PDF
The first wave of the National Income Dynamics Study – Coronavirus Rapid Mobile Survey (NIDSCRAM) provided strong evidence that there had been a drastic increase in both adult and child hunger in the survey months, May and June 2020, and that almost half of all households had on occasion run out of money for food during April 2020.
September 12, 2020 PDF
This paper considers how access to public sector healthcare in South Africa have been affected by the COVID-19 pandemic using three sources of evidence: the NIDS-CRAM (Coronavirus Rapid Mobile Survey) and MatCH (Maternal and Child Health) SMS survey together with routine health care utilisation data from the District Health Information System (DHIS).
September 11, 2020 PDF
It is said that Women’s Month is a celebration of women’s achievements and the important (and often under-recognised) role that they play in South African…
August 28, 2020 PDF
South Africa’s lockdown in March and April has saved lives by containing the spread of COVID-19 but it has done so at a tremendous social and economic cost. To avoid a second surge and another lockdown, it is vital to prioritise adherence to non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs) as a first line of defence against containing COVID-19. NPIs can save lives without having to risk livelihoods. But to have an impact, it requires sufficiently high levels of public adherence.
August 12, 2020 PDF
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
August 12, 2020 PDF
RESEP researcher recent Oped in News24: Opportunities for girls to excel few and far between RESEP researcher, Linda Zuze, recently wrote an article for News…
August 5, 2020 PDF
In an effort to provide expert opinions, as well as assist in guiding public discussions around socio-economic policy, such as education, and issues related to the COVID-19 pandemic, the press contributions of RESEP researchers have increased markedly over the past several months.
July 29, 2020 PDF
In April this year, 24-year-old Lunga Swelindawo received his Master’s degree in Economics. This Swartlander knew from a young age that he was different: He wanted to build bridges, lift other people and change people’s lives. Leo Cordom talked to Lunga Swelindawo about big dreams, to feel like a token black and his next big hurdle.
July 10, 2020 PDF
The report serves as a background paper to UNESCO’s 2020 Global Education Monitoring Report (GEMR).
June 26, 2020 PDF
This report determines how the real resources available to the average child in South Africa have changed over the period 2008 to 2018.
June 19, 2020 PDF
Van der Berg, S & Spaull, N. (2020). Counting the Cost: COVID-19 school closures in South Africa & its impacts on children. Research on Socioeconomic Policy (RESEP). Stellenbosch University. Stellenbosch.
June 16, 2020 PDF
A report by RESEP’s Servaas van der Berg, Martin Gustafsson, and Kholekile Malindi titled Education and Skills for the Economy and Links to Labour Markets in South Africa, has been released for public comment by the National Planning Commission.
June 9, 2020 PDF
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.
June 7, 2020 PDF
Gabrielle Wills and Servaas van der Berg explore the development and trial of new metrics to quantify school leadership and management practices and/or processes considered to be theoretically related to literacy outcomes.
May 27, 2020 PDF
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.
May 26, 2020 PDF
I use the latest (16 May) version of the OxCGRT dataset to answer three fairly common questions about COVID-19 in the South African context. The three questions are: (1) Is South Africa’s curve a relatively flat one? (2.) Does South Africa have ‘one of the toughest lockdowns on earth’? (3.) How do restrictions and ‘flattening the curve’ relate to each other, and where does South Africa fit in?
May 20, 2020 PDF
Good policymaking requires reliable, comparable statistics over time. Despite there being an annual survey of agricultural firms in South Africa, confusion exists about the number of commercial farms in South Africa and the structure of the agricultural sector. According to the agricultural census in 2007, there were 39 966 commercial farms, while the agricultural survey mentions a figure of 64 192 and 57 126 in 2008 and 2017, respectively. With such diverging numbers across time, which figures should we trust and how does one analyse trends in the sector and make evidence-based decisions?
May 19, 2020 PDF
This paper presents new evidence on the employment effects of a large increase in agricultural minimum wages in South Africa using anonymized tax data.
May 18, 2020 PDF
