Use and Impact of PIRLS

Naledi Pandor, former Minister of Education, publicly recognized the value of South Africa’s participation in large scale assessments and PIRLS 2006 in particular, whether conducted regionally, nationally, or internationally. She not only lent her support to these assessments but also recognized the difficulties associated with implementation and the generally negative publicity that participation has received. Angie Motshekga, current Minister of Education, stated in a recent speech that the department aims to improve studentsʼ reading levels to be age appropriate, and that this call was in response to national and international assessments.²⁴ The National Department of Basic Education directly manages the Southern and Eastern Africa Consortium for Monitoring Educational Quality studies and supported the administration of PIRLS 2006 and PIRLS 2011 in schools. For PIRLS 2016, the Department of Basic Educationʼs role provided significant funding for the project for the first time in partnership with the Centre for Evaluation and Assessment, University of Pretoria, the other funding partner.

South Africa’s results from PIRLS 2006, much worse than predicted, prompted Pandor at the time to introduce important changes to the education system, with a particular focus on reading literacy. These changes in the system were monitored by means of national assessment (Annual National Assessments) and various regional assessments such as the Western Cape Department of Educationʼs systemic testing, though both of these assessments have been disrupted by teacher unions.

The Drop All and Read Campaign is among more than 10 government-led initiatives put in place in South Africa to improve students’ reading literacy. Beginning in 2008, the campaign has welcomed Grade R and Grade 1 students into education by providing the children with their own branded bags. Each bag contains a selection of books that the children can read by themselves or that parents and caregivers can read to them. Pandor also initiated the 1,000 Libraries Campaign and the Spelling Bee project. The former targets poorly resourced schools in need of reading materials across the country and will run from 2015 to 2019. The aim of the Spelling Bee project is to improve studentsʼ language acquisition. The project was originally designed for Intermediate Phase (Grade 4 to 6) students, but in 2016 the project scope extended to include students from the Foundation Phase (Grades 1 to 3).

PIRLS 2006 and PIRLS 2011 data also revealed that more than half of the primary schools assessed in 2006 and 2011 had no school or classroom libraries, and that only 6 percent of students live in well resourced homes. The PIRLS 2011 data showed that students who came from the aforementioned schools performed on average 155 points lower than students who were in well resourced schools.²⁵ In the first quarter of 2008, the government announced that it was doubling the public library budget. Later, in 2014–2015 the total expenditure of basic education was just more than half of the total education budget, amounting to approximately 137.68 million Rand.²⁶ Over the last couple of years the department has sent storybooks, written in all official languages of South Africa, to more than 11,000 primary schools. The distribution of these books allowed many schools to establish classroom libraries for the first time. Other resources and documents that the Department of Basic Education distributed to schools in recent years include the following:

The National Reading Strategy document, which outlines activities and approaches to promote and develop the reading skills of students
A set of Rainbow Workbooks for students in Grades 1 to 9 was developed to enhance their listening, reading, and writing skills
A Rainbow Workbook Training Manual for teachers to clarify how to use these workbooks in everyday teaching and learning
A handbook for teachers to develop methods, approaches, and activities to improve their teaching of reading
A multigrade toolkit for teachers that contains reading resources and guidelines that is based on the curriculum for multigrade schools in rural areas

The extent to which PIRLS 2006 and PIRLS 2011 findings contributed to these developments is uncertain, but the coincidence of the timing of these initiatives and reference to PIRLS in parliamentary debates and influential policy related documents (including Treasury) suggests PIRLS had a considerable influence. PIRLS results have shown some “evidence of systemic failure in education despite almost universal access.”²⁷ However, to monitor whether student competencies are improving, the Department of Basic Education established baseline data on student achievement in literacy and numeracy in the early grades. As part of the Foundations for Learning Campaign, primary school students have been assessed annually via standardized tests, and the resulting data are being compared against established baselines. The Department of Education also implemented the Annual National Assessments to gauge studentsʼ performance on language and mathematics from Grades 1 to 9. These initiatives were designed in response to national outcry over studentsʼ low performance on national, regional, and international assessments. However, whether directly or indirectly, PIRLS certainly has contributed to a heightened awareness throughout South Africa of the country’s current status, problems, and needs regarding literacy.