The weak quality of education received by most poor children in South Africa places them in permanent disadvantage relative to those attending the mainly more affluent and better performing schools. This document draws from a large number of studies undertaken for a major project and summarises...

An existing accounting framework to describe an education system is elaborated and used as a framework for understanding and comparing the resource allocation policies of the South African and Argentinean schooling systems. The comparison highlights how, by paying fewer teachers more (relative...

The paper reviews some of the existing economics of education literature from the perspective of South Africa’s education policymaking needs. It also puts forward a suggested research agenda for future work. The review is arranged according to five key areas of analysis: rates of return,...

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...

In South Africa there has been a surge in publicly funded adult literacy education in recent years. There is a recognition that for the effective monitoring of adult literacy, direct measures of literacy are required. Grade attainment, self-reported ability to read and behavioural variables...

A review of a few input-output models indicates the importance of teacher ability, which may be independent of years of training, for improving pupil performance. A historical analysis confirms the substantial pay increases experienced by teachers in the mid-1990s, moderate pay increases in real...