Economic and Development Problems in South Africa and Africa

Session 10 – Education in SA

Department of Economics
•
Faculty of Economic and Management Sciences
 Aims for today

• Give background to SA education system

• What are major fault-lines in our education
system?
• What is extent of underperformance of SA
school system?
• What factors drive underperformance of SA
school system?

Lucky you!!

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 1) Overview of SA education system

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SA’s dualistic school system and labour market
High productivity jobs &
incomes
• ±10% of labour force – mainly
professional, managerial & skilled jobs
• Requires graduates, good quality
matric, or good vocational skills
• Historically mainly whites
•Some talented,
•Vocational
training lucky students
•Affirmative
action
Low productivity jobs & incomes
• Often manual or low skill jobs
• Limited or low quality education
• Minimum wage can exceed their
productivity
High quality schools
• ±10% of schools, mainly ex-white,
but racial composition changed
• Produce strong cognitive skills
• Teachers well qualified, schools
function well, good assessment,
parents involved
•Big demand for
motivated or good schools,
despite fees
manage the •A few schools
transition cross the divide
Low quality schools
• Produce very weak cognitive skills
• Teachers less qualified, de-motiva-
ted, many schools dysfunctional,
weak assessment, little parental
involvement, strong union presence
• Mainly former black (DET) schools
 Education affects labour market outcomes
1,0
0,9 Employment probability, 2005 • Good education provides access to
Employment probability

0,8 (conditional)
0,7 top end of labour market – (better)
(conditional)

0,6
0,5
0,4
jobs, higher wages
0,3
0,2
• Skills shortage at top end causes a
0,1
0,0
wage premium
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15
Education (years)
• Oversupply of unskilled workers
4,0
depresses wages at bottom end
3,5
Log of wage, 2005 • Race between demand and supply
(conditional)
Log of wage per hour

3,0
of skills will determine skills premium
(conditional)

2,5
2,0 • This premium and the distribution of
1,5
educational attainment are currently
1,0
0,5 central to SA income inequality
0,0
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15
Education (years)

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Education also determines individual prospects – with a
potential vicious circle of weak education and poverty
2. Cognitive
1.SES
ability in early
at birth
childhood

6. Labour 3. Educational
market performance in
performance early school years

5. Ultimate
educational 4. Educational
attainment and achievement at
quality matric
2) South Africa’s performance in INTERNATIONAL context

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 0
100
200
300
400
500
600
700
Sing apo
re
Korea
Hong Ko
ng
Ta iwa n
Ja pan
Belg ium
Nethe rl a
nds
Austral ia
U SA
Swede n
Engl and
Sco tlan
d
Is ra el
New Ze a
lan
Slov eniad
Ita ly
Norway
Cyprus
Bahrai n
Esto nia
Hunga ry
M alay sia
Slov aki a
La tvia
Russ ia
Lith uan
ia
Armeni a
Serbi a &
M
Bulga ria.
Roma nia
M oldo
M aced o v a
nia
Le banon
Mean Maths score in TIMMS 2003 (Grade 8)

Jo rd an
Ira
Ind ones n
ia
Tun isia
Egy
Pal estinpt
e
Chile
M orocco
Phil ippin
e
Botswans
Sau di A a
rabia
SOUTH Ghana
AFRICA
 0
100
200
300
400
500
Russia
Hong Kong 565
Canada:Alberta
Singapore
Canada:British …
Luxembourg
Canada:Ontario
Italy
Hungary
Sweden
Germany
Netherlands
Belgium (Flemish)
Bulgaria
Denmark
Canada:Nova …
Latvia
United States
England
Austria
Lithuania
Chinese Taipei
Canada:Quebec
New Zealand
Slovak Republic
Literacy score in PIRLS 2006

Scotland
France
Slovenia
Poland
Spain
Israel
Iceland
Moldova
Belgium (French)
500

Norway
Romania
Georgia
Macedonia
Trinidad & Tobago
Iran
Indonesia
405

Qatar
Kuwait
Morocco
South Africa
302
 0
20
40
60
80

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Hong Kong
Luxembourg
Netherlands
Belgium (Flemish)
Lithuania
Russia
Italy
Sweden
Latvia
Austria
Canada
Singapore
Hungary
Germany

1 1 1 1 1 2 2 2 2 2 2 3 3 3 3
Chinese Taipei
Denmark
United States

4 4 4
France
Bulgaria 5 6
Slovak Republic
6

Slovenia
6

Spain
England
Scotland
Poland
Iceland
in PIRLS 2006 (Gr.4; in SA Gr.5)

New Zealand
Belgium (French)
Norway
7 7 7 7 8 8 8 9

Moldova
Israel
15 16

Romania
18

Georgia
Macedonia
% below low international benchmark (400)

34 36

Trinidad & Tobago

40

Iran
46

Indonesia
67

Qatar
Kuwait
72 74

Morocco
78

South Africa
% of SA students exceeding performance at 75th percentile of
developed countries
(“who would ‘make it’ economically in developed countries")
Objections to international comparison:

•It’s wrong to compare SA to OECD countries

•SA is still recovering from apartheid

•SA is underperforming due to poverty

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 3) South Africa’s performance in REGIONAL context (SACMEQ)

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 Placing SA in regional context

Reading
10th /15

Maths
8th /15

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 Placing SA in regional context

4th /15

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 Placing SA in regional context
4th /15

14th/15 !!!
Caveat… GER?

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 Placing SA in regional context

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 Placing SA in regional context

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 Placing SA in regional context

Rural
13th /15

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 Placing SA in regional context

Urban
9th /15

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3) Not only does SA’s school system perform poorly, it is also
highly unequal

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 Primary school: Gr.6 reading test scores by SES quintile

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 Primary school: PIRLS (Gr 5) reading scores by
school type
.005 .004
kdensity reading test score
.001 .002 0.003

0 200 400 600 800

reading test score

African language schools English/Afrikaans schools

NB correlation between race and wealth

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Proxy IQ
Red = rich

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 Secondary school: Matriculants’ performance by race, 2007

70%

60%

50%

Pass Matric
40%
Maths passes
Endorsements
30%
HG Maths passes
20% A-aggregates

10%

0%
Blacks Coloureds Indians Whites Total
 Secondary school

Apply critical
thinking!!

What is misleading
about this picture?

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 Two school systems? Yes, BUT...

The problem of the

low overall mean,
but misperception
exists that the top
end fares well in an
international
comparison.

Mathematics
score of the
95th
performance
percentile.

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 4) Just how bad are the students/teachers??

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 WCED study: % of Gr. 3 learners who could
verbally answer questions below (in home language)
100% 95% 98%

90%

80%
72% 71%
69%
70%

60%
50%
50%

40% 34% 36%

30% 27%

20% 17%

10%

0%
2x2 5x5 2x3 10 x 10 2x2 3x6 2x3 4x5 2x4 6x6

Learner 1 Learner 2 Learner 3 Learner 4 Learner 5

But ¾ of Gr.3 teachers said they covered times tables 3+ days per week
Yet barely half of teachers were confident that most of their learners could
correctly answer “2 times 4” (Plus, this is WC!!)
 What about teachers?
In SACMEQ III, Maths teachers participated in a Maths tests & English
teachers in a reading test
Example of one answer on a Maths test:

• Most Grade 6 Maths teachers (57%) thought the answer was

15 percent (presumably they just calculated 75 minus 60 =15 !!!)
• Only 24% of Maths teachers got this right, i.e. answered 25%
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 Research at SUN Economics Department

• Recent research 

1) How does one

research education
using the tools of
economics?

2) What did we find?

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 1)Methodology: Education production function

Inputs:
• student
• household PRODUCTION Output:
• community PROCESS • reading score
• classroom
• teacher
• school

?
Regression analysis → coefficients provide an indication of the
direction, size and significance of the impacts of inputs on
output.

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 Education production functions

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 2) Our studies show

1) Divide in the performance of rich and poor children is

already noticeable from early in primary school

• By Grade 3 already large gaps in the performance of

school children in the top 20% versus bottom 80%

• Given the importance of Foundation Phase and the

magnitude of observed gap by Grade 3, one may
argue that that by eight many children from poor
communities may have already been deprived of some
career choices. Moral issue!

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 Our studies show
• Why are these schools not functioning?

2) Lacking crucial complementary resources such as

textbooks
3) Minor role for teacher knowledge, but may be
due to constraints or teacher knowledge not
capturing relevant dimensions of teacher quality
4) Classroom practices such as curriculum
coverage and homework exercises

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 Our studies show

• Why are these schools not functioning?

• Discipline and management e.g. curriculum
planning, a functional timetable, teaching support
materials (LTSM), good quality inventories for learning
and low teacher absenteeism
• Assessment and feedback Lack of feedback to
learners and parents also appears to hinder the
progress of learners in poor schools
• Community and social factors, including ECD

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 Overall?

• Picture that emerges is of low education as a

poverty trap
• Child from a poor community is very likely to receive an
inferior education
• And the low quality of education is likely to lower chances
of employment and reduce expected wages
• Thus also decreasing the likelihood of this child escaping
poverty
• In contrast, affluent children more likely to pass Matric with
an exemption, complete tertiary education and thus have
favourable labour market prospects
• Where does this leave us?
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 Questions ???

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 Miscellaneous

Group Assignment (next week)

• Read up on the state of education in Africa
• Common problems?
• Solutions?
• Think critically!

Essays
• Finalise your topics by Friday
• I have some suggestions (though more difficult)

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