PRIMARY EDUCATION IN CRISIS: Why South African schoolchildren underachieve in reading and mathematics by Brahm Fleisch
(Juta Academy) R160
A picture tells a thousand tales. The cover of Primary Education in Crisis shows a typical classroom scene. Rough bare walls, well-worn desks arranged in groups and children intensely engaged in drawing pictures. One child holds a tiny piece of a broken crayon, another rests his head on the desk while he writes his name on the paper.
The scene speaks of a context of deprivation, with very few resources around. This picture provides the clues to why so many South African children underachieve. Despite a number of efforts and reforms to improve education in South Africa, the overall outcomes remain poor.
The 2007 matric results show that only 65,2% of the candidates who write the examination pass. Primary school benchmark tests, such as the 2006 Progress in International Reading Literacy Study, show that almost 80% of South African children do not have basic reading skills by the time they reach grade five and only 2% measure up to the highest international standards of literacy. While a small minority of primary schoolchildren, mainly in privileged schools, achieve at benchmark grade levels, the vast majority do not achieve basic mastery in reading, writing and mathematics.
Primary Education in Crisis sets out to come to grips with the reasons for the brute inequality in primary school achievement. Fleisch sets out systematically to collect and review academic articles and other authoritive studies to establish why schools underachieve. The central aim of his book is to make sense of the existing research literature and Fleisch engages interdisciplinary conversation about primary school failure, a dialogue that includes education researchers, health science researchers, economists, sociologists, linguists, anthropologists and psychologists. In doing so Fleisch brings together disciplines that normally don’t speak to one another, creating an imagined community of scholars.
Even though South Africa is classified as a middle-income country, a substantial portion of the population live in poverty, with 60% of children living in households with income levels below a minimum acceptable level.
South African studies find strong and positive correlations between socio-economic background and academic performance. Children from poor families generally perform poorly in reading and mathematics tests. Poverty in South Africa is linked to a high unemployment rate. Education is seen as a way out of poverty for poor families and a large portion of their disposable income is spent on school fees, uniforms and transport to get to school.
Fleisch shows that the effect of health problems on education is complex and varied. Long-term physiological and neurological damage that would directly influence achievement are strongly related to poverty.
Fleisch looks in detail at health problems such as malnutrition, parasite infection, hearing loss, asthma, foetal alcohol syndrome, malaria and HIV/Aids. In the case of HIV-infected children, for example, children from households where parents are sick and dying are likely to be profoundly impoverished. This can affect enrolment, attendance and ultimately achievement.
Fleisch also considers the aspect of teacher knowledge as an important factor influencing classroom and learner performance. A number of small-scale studies are reviewed and the conclusion is that poor children are typically exposed to inappropriate teaching often as a result of the misinterpretation of the new curriculum.
One study showed that children in poor schools, on average, have about three-and-half hours of actual teaching a day compared with the six hours and 15 minutes in a middle-class school. Teachers in the poor school paced the teaching at the level of the slowest learners, whereas in the middle-class school lessons were at a faster pace and took a range of learner needs into account.
The language of learning is another challenge faced in primary schools. Most South African schoolchildren attend schools that either have straight-to-English ore early transition to English language policies. Children are also tested in a language different to their home language and consequently perform worse. According to Fleisch, the literature suggests that there is a link between language and the achievement gap. These challenges include the emotions in bilingual classrooms, the number of unfamiliar words, the difficulties of moving between languages and the degree of wider exposure to English.
In the end Fleisch’s book says there are no quick answers to turning education around in the country. Too many people still live in dire poverty, which affects health, welfare and so forth. The legacy of inadequate resources, a curriculum that does not provide enough guidance and support and the shortage of skilled teachers make reform a long and slow process.
It is clear from the evidence presented in Primary Education in Crisis that there is a problem in Africa and the book leads the reader to the ultimate question: “What must we do about the problem?” Here the book doesn’t really help.
Fleisch explains the problems of using existing data. He argues that we need conclusive evidence of the underlying causes of the educational failure and scientifically proved interventions; evidence of the capacity of the state or other implementing agencies to translate that into practice; and evidence of careful and thorough attention to the unintended consequences for any intervention.
Primary Education in Crisis is well written in an accessible style. Fleisch provides a gripping overview of the ills afflicting education in South Africa. He succeeds in drawing together the work of a cross-section of researchers to explain the causes of multiplicity of reasons for the failure of primary education in South Africa.
Mark Potterton is the director of the Catholic Institute of Education