The 2023 Back-on-Track (BoT) programme, launched by the Western Cape Education Department (WCED), aimed to address significant learning deficits caused by the COVID-19 pandemic over a period of three years.
This R1.2 billion initiative targeted improvements in mathematics and language through interventions for learners and teachers in grades 4, 7, and 8. Using Systemic Tests and School-Based Assessments (SBAs), this evaluation assesses the programme’s impact on grade 4 and grade 7 learners.
Key findings show partial recovery in learning outcomes, with notable gains in schools where Afrikaans or isiXhosa were the Language of Learning and Teaching (LOLT). The key outcomes of the learner interventions are summarised in the table below. It shows the average gains from the learner intervention for the two samples of children (those who had written Book A and Book B respectively in the 2022 Systemic Tests). It is based on assuming that a year of learning (200 days) is equivalent to 40% of a standard deviation.
This leads to a conservative conversion of effect sizes to school days. A smaller estimate of a year of learning, which may seem warranted by the low learning trajectories in South Africa, would mean that the effect sixes would be converted at a different rate. For instance, if it were assumed that a year of learning was only 0.20 SD, it would mean that each 1% of a SD converts to 10 school days, rather than five. It would also mean that the learning losses or deficits would convert to an even larger fraction of a school year.
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