Stellenbosch University’s Professor Martin Gustafsson says the assessment by an international research body on the reading competency of Grade 4 pupils was completely wrong.
In 2017, the Netherlands-based International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement released the progress in International Reading Literacy Study results, which revealed that about 78% of pupils in Grade 4 nationally cannot read.
However, according to Gustafasson’s findings, the raw data appeared not to have been properly analysed in arriving at the conclusion that there was no progress between 2011 to 2016.
“The international publications pointed out that there was no improvement, but after having looked at this again, we have finally established that there was an improvement and it was quite a substantial improvement. In 2016, the Grade 4 learners were reading about as well the Grade 5 learners were in 2015. So, essentially, the system kind of moved up,” he said.
“This doesn't mean that we are out of the woods. Reading is still very weak at primary level but it was improving during that period.
“If we were to continue on this type of trajectory, we would be around about where Malaysia is 2030,” Gustafasson told eNCA.
In addition, the education economist said reading levels at primary level are poorly monitored. The department doesn't really know which are the hot spots with really weak learning.
“The classical scores, in contrast, pointed to a large increase over the 2011 to 2016 period, from around 32% correct to 42% correct. Of 43 countries with a 2011 to 2016 trend, South Africa’s trend was the third-steepest increase, after those of Morocco and Oman. If correctly calculated, the item response theory scores should have pointed to a similar gain,” said Gustafasson.