The fifteenth edition of the South Africa Economic Update, Learning: Overdue Reforms and Emerging Priorities in Basic Education, discusses South Africa’s economic prospects and focuses on basic education system in the country.
In 2024, South Africa’s economy continued to advance on a slow and weak inclusive growth trajectory while recording high fiscal deficits. Despite optimism from a successful political transition following the elections and no energy load shedding in 2024, the country’s economic recovery remains sluggish. Financial and external sectors improved slightly, but government accounts worsened. GDP growth was 0.8%, better than 2023 but below the 4.1% average for middle-income countries.
Education, and more importantly, the knowledge and skills young people acquire while they are in school are crucial for South Africa to not only to thrive economically, but also to address inequalities. However, South Africa is currently facing a learning crisis alongside declining budgets in education, which are likely to have adverse consequences for the country’s people and its economic development.
The report proposes three interrelated actions that would improve learning levels and proposes innovative solutions to the fiscal constraints, including:
- Focus on Early Education: Scale up early grade reading programs by improving the quality of teaching in lower grades with structured lesson plans and coaching support, high-quality books, and regular learning assessments. Increase access to quality Early Childhood Development (ECD), particularly for disadvantaged children.
- Leverage Private Sector: Partnering with private providers, including non-governmental organizations, to expand the network of schools and improve learning performance in an affordable manner. Successful pilot partnerships with the private sector could be scaled up and other models of partnerships tested.
- Enhance Efficiency and Equity: Prioritize improving teacher performance by adopting Teacher Professional Standards, particularly given the opportunity of many new teachers entering the system. Target resources to schools serving learners from poor households with low learning performance. This requires reviewing teacher allocation to needy schools and revitalizing a national assessment system to regularly collect learning performance data.