Leanne Jansen
If a child cannot read, write and count at the required level by Grade 4, the chances that he or she will reach university are very slim, says research which used data from the Annual National Assessments.
This means that passing matric well, and potentially earning a university degree, is already largely unattainable for most children by the time they reach the end of the foundation phase (end of Grade 3).
The newly released research is the work of Servaas van der Berg, a professor of economics at Stellenbosch University.
“The policy message is simple and stark; for most children, learning deficits are already so substantial by the middle of primary school that many doors have already closed for them,” he notes.
While it is important to try to remedy those deficits in the later grades, the greatest effort is required in the early school years.
“This is where the greatest policy challenge lies in terms of reducing the deficits that mainly children from poorer communities face in our schooling system.”
The Annual National Assessments (literacy and numeracy tests) are highly contested terrain, over which a showdown between Basic Education Minister Angie Motshekga and five teachers’ unions has been playing out.
In his research Van der Berg noted that the assessments had been successful in a number of ways – not least as a massive logistical exercise undertaken relatively successfully.
“It is important to build on those successes and develop ANA as a measuring instrument.”
The findings, and the case made for how critical it was to intervene in the early grades, contradicted the idea that poor Grade 9 maths scores in the assessments meant that efforts at remedying poor performance must be targeted at the Grade 9 level.
Van der Berg said he could assert “with a fair degree of certainty” that if a child could not read, write and count at the required level by Grade 4, the chances that he or she would reach university were “bitterly slim”. His analysis of performance across grades showed a clear learning gap between children from advantaged and non-advantaged backgrounds, that was already “exceedingly wide” by Grade 4.
“By this grade, the pattern of performance across different parts of the school system appears quite similar to that for university exemptions in Grade 12, intimating that potential access to university is already largely determined by Grade 4.
“Dealing with poor performance in mathematics in Grade 9 is taking the wrong message from ANA, which shows that deficits are already massive by Grade 9.”