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ABSTRACT
This paper provides an overview of learning losses and altered schooling patterns in South Africa during the COVID-19 pandemic (2020–2021). Five major trends emerge from a review of the evidence. These include significant learning losses (38–118% of a year of learning), widened learning inequality, lowered grade repetition rates, increased secondary school enrolments and an unprecedented rise in candidates writing and passing the National Senior Certificate (NSC) examination. School completion significantly increased in 2021 and 2022, spurred by COVID-19 adjusted assessment and promotion practices in Grades 10 and 11. Larger numbers of youth also achieved a NSC pass or Bachelor's pass enabling access to university. With twin pandemic shocks of learning losses and secondary school enrolment increases, remediating losses and realigning progression rules to effective assessment practices should be prioritised.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
1 For approximately one-third of schools implementing rotations, Grade 3 attendance was as low as 45% in term 3 of 2021 (DBE, Citation2022a:5).
2 The average within-country SD of reading achievement in reference is 82.4 points (Jakubowski et al., Citation2023).
3 Previous reports have referred to a 2016 to 2021 learning loss in PIRLS of 80% of a year of learning (see Spaull, Citation2023), where a year of learning is incorrectly assumed to be 40 points. However, as Spaull and Pretorius (Citation2019:153) note ‘the oft-cited 40-point figure for a year of learning is based on three Nordic countries’ rather than South Africa.
4 The pandemic-related learning declines in the Western Cape should be viewed in relation to the already low performance that predated COVID-19 and that the Western Cape is the best performing province in South Africa along with Gauteng.
5 Official school ‘Quintile’ classifications distinguish schools along the lines of community wealth. Generally, Quintile 1–3 schools are not allowed to charge fees while Quintile 4–5 schools are allowed to charge fees.
6 In the period 2003–2005, South Africa’s birth rates unexpectedly rose by 13% (Gustafsson, Citation2018).
7 The Multiple Examination Opportunity is a programme to support learners who had failed a grade at least twice but are then progressed to the next grade. They are given the option to split their subjects, for the final NSC examination, over the final exam period and the following year’s June exam period.
8 The percentage of youths successfully completing Grade 12 has increased from about 45% in 2005, to around 62% in 2021 drawing on General Household Survey data (DBE, Citation2023b).