Policy note on pre-primary schooling: An empirical contribution to the 2009 Medium Term Strategic Framework

Various data analysis approaches are used to gauge recent pre-primary enrolment trends in South Africa and the level of compliance with official age-grade norms in Grades R and 1. An analysis of the circumstances of Grade R learners finds that large class sizes are a problem. Two separate logit models are used to examine what factors are associated with better pre-school participation and whether participation in pre-school leads to better learning outcomes in primary school.