The ISER invites you to join us in this seminar which provides a fresh perspective on South Africa’s educational quality challenges, aimed at contributing constructively to national education policy debates.

Discussion paper title: The Politics of Improving Learning Outcomes in South Africa

Summary:

While improvements have been made towards a more equitable education system in South Africa, outcomes remain well below those of other middle-income countries. Even within Africa, South Africa lags behind, with weak foundational skills in areas such as reading and numeracy, especially amongst younger learners. Only 20% of South African children can read by age 10, with the country coming last in an international reading literacy study (PIRLS 2021). There is rising concern over the adverse long-range implications for skills in the labour market, poverty reduction and social cohesion.

Several political and non-political factors continue to hinder educational development in South Africa, including weak education planning capacity, poor quality teacher training at universities, an electoral system which rewards politicians who tend to focus on visible phenomena such as school infrastructure and certification, and corruption within the schooling system and institutions as a whole. The South African experience confirms that a more politically informed approach to education policy analysis is illuminating and necessary, leading to considerations into the political economy of education.

Professor Martin Gustafsson, together with Dr Nick Taylor (JET Education Services), have been investigating the political economy and ideology of South Africa’s educational development, paying special attention to the acquisition of foundational skills in the early grades. The study forms part of the international Research in Improving Systems of Education (RISE) programme, a comparative meta-study aimed at presenting new global insights into the political economy of schooling. This focuses on understanding why foundational skills among learners are so low in developing countries, and how this problem can be resolved.

Some key questions:

1. Given South Africa’s current political economy context, how likely is it that desired educational quality improvements in future will be realised?
2. What historical factors, over the last four decades or so, have shaped the policies, institutions, leadership and quality trends in South Africa’s education system?
3. What conceptual frameworks seem particularly effective for taking South Africa's political economy debates forward in the area of education?

Attend online:

CLICK HERE TO REGISTER AND ATTEND ONLINE

Join us in-person:

ISER’s Seminar Room, 7 Prince Alfred Street, Makhanda, Rhodes University.

RSVP to b.mothlabane@ru.ac.za for catering purposes.

GUEST SPEAKER:

Professor Martin Gustafsson  

Martin Gustafsson is a former history teacher who currently works as an education economist, producing research for the Department of Basic Education (DBE), South Africa’s national authority for schools. He is a member of ReSEP (Research on Socio-Economic Policy), a unit at Stellenbosch University’s Department of Economics, and is a visiting research fellow for the ISER, Rhodes University, South Africa. His research interests include economics of education (including teacher pay), development economics, cross-country comparisons in education, education policy design, research-policymaking linkages, applied econometrics, and multi-year modelling of financial and non-financial values in education planning.

RESPONDENT:

Mr David Fryer

David Fryer is a political economist at Rhodes University’s Department of Economics and Economic History, where he teaches macroeconomics, microeconomics, and political economy and labour. He is part of the Neil Aggett Labour Studies Unit (NALSU) and is a co-editor of the Journal of Contemporary African Studies. David’s research interests include labour markets, education and skills systems, and the role of macroeconomic and social policy, with a particular interest in social democracy and multilateralism. At a local level, David has recently been focusing on Makhanda, and Rhodes University’s position in the community. He is currently engaged in research projects on the contribution of local agency to sustainability, Early Learning, Rhodes University’s 9/10^th programme, and the performance of Economics 2 students.

 

CHAIR:

Dr Reesha Kara

Dr Kara is a researcher at the Institute of Social and Economic Research (ISER) at Rhodes University. Much of her research is focused on human and economic development with interests in single motherhood, socio-economic wellbeing, gender relations, poverty and social issues concerning everyday South Africans. Dr Kara has years of experience and training in quantitative research methodology, focusing on the analysis of nationally representative survey data. Many of her research projects have been developed around the use of social statistics to understand social and economic phenomena.