Martin Gustafsson
Researcher and Advisor to the Department of Basic Education
Martin is a researcher with the Department of Economics at Stellenbosch University, from which he obtained his Master’s degree in 2006 and PhD in 2014, the latter being on the role of education in economic development.
Martin is a part of the RESEP team but is based in Pretoria, where he works as an advisor for the Department of Basic Education. His areas of specialisation include the use of economics in education planning, the design of school funding policies, the economics of teacher pay, the demographics of schooling systems and cross-country comparisons of educational policy and performance.
A teacher retirement wave is about to hit South Africa: what it means for class size
Teacher supply and demand is a complex matter. The ultimate aim is to have a teacher in front of every class, now and for the…
September 13, 2021 PDF
A new report looks into the effects of the COVID-19 on global indicators of early-grade learning proficiency
Martin Gustafsson has recently published a report titled "Pandemic-related disruptions to schooling and impacts on learning proficiency indicators in which he has modelled the possible…
April 6, 2021 PDF
Floor effects and the comparability of developing country student test scores
The report serves as a background paper to UNESCO’s 2020 Global Education Monitoring Report (GEMR).
June 26, 2020 PDF
Call for Comment on Report: Education and Skills for the Economy and Links to Labour Markets in South Africa
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…
June 9, 2020 PDF
Common Questions about South Africa’s Covid-19 Response Answered using the International OxCGRT Dataset
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…
May 20, 2020 PDF
How does South Africa’s Covid-19 Response Compare Globally? A Preliminary Analysis using the new OxCGRT Dataset
How does South Africa’s Covid-19 response compare globally? A preliminary analysis using the new OxCGRT dataset A 19 May 2020 update of aspects of…
April 17, 2020 PDF
A revised PIRLS 2011 to 2016 trend for South Africa and the importance of analysing the underlying microdata
Stellenbosch Working Paper Series No. WP02/2020Given South Africa’s weak performance in international testing programmes, there is a strong interest in gauging improvements within these programmes.
February 21, 2020 PDF
Understanding the sharp primary level enrolment increases beginning in 2011
Stellenbosch Working Paper Series No. WP08/2018Stellenbosch Working Paper Series No. WP08/2018 Publication date: May 2018 Abstract: Enrolments at the primary level in South Africa increased sharply from around 2011. Over…
July 19, 2018 PDF
Rotten apples or just apples and pears? Understanding patterns consistent with cheating in international test data
Stellenbosch Working Paper Series No. WP17/2017Stellenbosch Working Paper Series No. WP17/2017 Publication date: December 2017 Abstract: The Southern and Eastern Africa Consortium for Monitoring Educational Quality (SACMEQ) programme has succeeded…
July 16, 2018 PDF
Teacher supply and the quality of schooling in South Africa. Patterns over space and time
Stellenbosch Working Paper Series No. WP03/2016Stellenbosch Working Paper Series No. WP03/2016 Abstract: The paper addresses policy questions in South Africa’s education system using a newly merged 1999 to 2013 panel…
July 4, 2018 PDF
Treating schools to a new administration: Evidence from South Africa of the impact of better practices in the system-level administration of schools
Stellenbosch Working Paper Series No. WP05/2016Stellenbosch Working Paper Series No. WP05/2016 Abstract: School examination results are far from ideal measures of progress in schooling systems, yet if analysed with sufficient…
July 4, 2018 PDF
Treating schools to a new administration: Evidence of the impact of better practices in the system-level administration of schools
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.…
May 7, 2018 PDF
Using the hierarchical linear model to understand school production in South Africa
Stellenbosch Working Paper Series No. WP01/2007Stellenbosch Working Paper Series No. WP01/2007 Abstract: The emphasis placed in the existing South African school production function literature on better skilled teachers and better…
October 17, 2017 PDF
What we can learn from a comparison of the schooling systems of South Africa and Argentina
Stellenbosch Working Paper Series No. WP17/2008Stellenbosch Working Paper Series No. WP17/2008 Abstract: An existing accounting framework to describe an education system is elaborated and used as a framework for understanding…
October 17, 2017 PDF
Managing the teacher pay system: What the local and international data are telling us
Stellenbosch Working Paper Series No. WP26/2009Stellenbosch Working Paper Series No. WP26/2009 Abstract: A review of a few input-output models indicates the importance of teacher ability, which may be independent of…
October 17, 2017 PDF
Policy note on pre-primary schooling: An empirical contribution to the 2009 Medium Term Strategic Framework
Stellenbosch Working Paper Series No. WP05/2010Stellenbosch Working Paper Series No. WP05/2010 Abstract: Various data analysis approaches are used to gauge recent pre-primary enrolment trends in South Africa and the level…
October 17, 2017 PDF
South Africa’s economics of education: A stocktaking and an agenda for the way forward
Stellenbosch Working Paper Series No. WP06/2010Stellenbosch Working Paper Series No. WP06/2010 Abstract: The paper reviews some of the existing economics of education literature from the perspective of South Africa’s education…
October 17, 2017 PDF
The costs of illiteracy in South Africa
Stellenbosch Working Paper Series No. WP14/2010Stellenbosch Working Paper Series No. WP14/2010 Abstract: In South Africa, there has been a surge in publicly funded adult literacy education in recent years. There…
October 17, 2017 PDF
Identifying Binding Constraints in Education
Synthesis Report for the Programme to Support Pro-Poor Policy Development (PSPPD) This research report provides an overview of a large research project undertaken by a…
October 16, 2017 PDF
The when and how of leaving school: The policy implications of new evidence on secondary schooling in South Africa
Stellenbosch Working Paper Series No. WP09/2011Stellenbosch Working Paper Series No. WP09/2011 Abstract: South African and international household and education datasets are analysed to characterise patterns of dropping out, grade repetition,…
October 16, 2017 PDF
More countries, similar results. A nonlinear programming approach to normalising test scores needed for growth regressions
Stellenbosch Working Paper Series No. WP12/2012Stellenbosch Working Paper Series No. WP12/2012 Abstract: Analysts such as Hanushek and Woessman have brought to the fore the deceptiveness of education enrolments, or years…
October 16, 2017 PDF
The gap between school enrolments and population in South Africa: Analysis of the possible explanations.
Stellenbosch Working Paper Series No. WP23/2012Stellenbosch Working Paper Series No. WP23/2012 Abstract: In South Africa, like in many developing countries, the differences between enrolment totals, estimated by the education authorities,…
October 16, 2017 PDF
New evidence in the case for improving the quality of secondary school learning outcomes
Stellenbosch Policy Brief No. 01/2011Stellenbosch Policy Brief No. 01/2011 Abstract: A recent paper, based on new household survey data, finds that pre-final year completion rates in South African secondary…
October 16, 2017 PDF
Recent patterns in the extent and quality of pre-primary education in South Africa
Stellenbosch Policy Brief No. 02/2010Stellenbosch Policy Brief No. 02/2010 Abstract: A recent paper, using new household data, indicates that the percentage of Grade 1 learners who have experienced pre-primary…
October 16, 2017 PDF
SA data shows large and unexpected increase in births around 2004
This article originally appeared on the Business Day website as a partially edited version, which can be found here. For the original article, please read…
July 17, 2017 PDF
Enrolment ratios and related puzzles in developing countries: Approaches for interrogating the data drawing from the case of South Africa
Abstract Available developing country enrolment ratios are frequently inaccurate. This results in poorly informed policy discourses. Underlying data problems can undermine funding systems. The…
May 7, 2015 PDF
Education and Country Growth Models
Thesis (PhD)—University of Stellenbosch, 2014 PhD Thesis Candidate: Martin Gustafsson Supervisor: Professor Servaas van der Berg Institution: Stellenbosch University, Faculty of Economic and Management Sciences, Department of Economics Abstract The over-arching concern…
October 16, 2014 PDF
More countries, similar results: A nonlinear programming approach to normalising test scores needed for growth regressions
Abstract Analysts such as Hanushek and Woessman have brought to the fore the deceptiveness of education enrolments, or years of schooling, in growth regressions…
May 10, 2013 PDF
South Africa’s economics of education: A stocktaking and an agenda for the way forward
Abstract The paper reviews some of the existing economics of education literature from the perspective of South Africa’s education policymaking needs. It also puts…
May 10, 2012 PDF
Undoing the apartheid legacy: Pro-poor spending shifts in the South African public school system
Abstract By using a consolidated dataset of schools derived from a range of administrative systems, it is shown that overall public spending in the schooling…
May 10, 2006 PDF
