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South Africa: A Brief Background and Basic Statistics
South Africa is an upper-middle-income country (World Bank, 2008). The country consists of nine provinces with 11 official languages. It is characterized by stark contrasts and it is not uncommon to see evidence of hunger, destitution and poverty side-by-side with affluence and wealth. Currently, World Bank estimates place the GNP at $224 billion per annum (World Bank, World Development Indicators, 2008). South Africa’s social context over the last ten years paints a disconcerting picture, as Aliber (2001) refers to an adult poverty line of R325 per month and states that 71.6% of all poor people reside in rural areas. Stated otherwise, it implies that 70.9% of all rural people are poor. Using the same poverty line as reference, 61% of Blacks are poor, 38% of Coloureds, 5% of Asians and 1% of Whites. According to Woolard (2002) approximately 15% of the adult population is illiterate and about 9.2% of children under the age of five are malnourished. Among households in the poorest quintile in 1995, 51% of all expenditure was on food. Around 23% of children under the age of 6 are stunted, indicating chronic under-nutrition, while the most frequently affected children can be found in rural areas where mothers have relatively little education (Aliber, 2001). The turn of the century saw South Africa suffering from acute problems in several social and demographic aspects. Life expectancy had dramatically declined from 62 years in 1990 to only 48 years in 1999, mainly as a result of the impact of HIV/AIDS (Woolard, 2002). It was estimated that 13% of the population and as many as 25% of the adult population were infected with the Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV). Nor have the figures improved, with the Statistics South Africa Mid-Year Population estimate report (2009) suggesting an overall HIV prevalence rate at 10.6%, an infant mortality rate at 45 per 1000 live births and the maternal mortality rate standing at 230 per 100 000 live births. From a total population of 44 million, approximately 8 million are surviving on less than the one dollar per day poverty line (the international benchmark indicating poverty, roughly less than R7.00 per day), with another 18 million living on less than 2 dollars per day (between R7 and R14 per day).
In terms of South African currency, 37% of households survive on less than R1000 per month as measured in 2002, while 60% of the poor do not receive government aid in the form of social transfers or grants (Woolard, 2002). Access to services is highly skewed by income level, location and race. Aliber (2001) mentions that 18% of households within the poorest decile must travel more than one kilometer to access water, as opposed to 1% of households in the top three deciles.The statistics for schools follow a similar pattern to that of the country’s overall population. Reports from 2000 stated that the majority of schools were still poorly resourced, to the extent that one-quarter were water-deprived and did not have water within walking distance (Harber & Muthukrishna, 2000). Only approximately 8% of these schools have access elsewhere to a communal tap, and this facility is often at some distance. Electricity provision in schools is scarce and the provision of toilets and sanitary facilities falls short of reasonable standards. Harber and Muthukrishna (2000) reported that in KwaZulu Natal. 66% of schools do not have telephones, 66.2% do not have toilets and one quarter of school buildings are considered to be too dangerous for occupation by learners and hence not fit for educational purposes. Textbook provision falls between categories of ‘adequate’ and ‘inadequate’, yet more disturbingly 82% of schools do not have media or teaching equipment.
THE SOUTH AFRICAN EDUCATIONAL CONTEXT
Since the transition in 1994 to a democracy, the education system has undergone extensive changes and reforms. South Africa has a long history of segregated and unequal education, dating back to the early days of British rule. Blacks who managed to receive some form of education were initially educated by foreign churches and missions which took it upon themselves to tutor learners in the English language and according to western ideologies (Fiske & Ladd, 2004). By the time South Africa adopted an apartheid system, with ‘separate development’ along racial lines, churches and mission groups were providing schooling for nearly two-thirds of Blacks. In 1953, Parliament passed the Bantu Education Act, giving churches and mission groups a choice of either surrendering control of their schools to the government or accepting gradually diminished state subsidies. The education system under the apartheid government sought to exercise comprehensive control over every aspect of education, and reflected National Party views in its organizational structures (Fiske & Ladd, 2004). The apartheid ideology reflected the idea that South Africa’s four racial groups (“Blacks”, “Whites”, “Coloureds” and “Indians”) should live and develop independently of one another. Consequently, separate education systems were established for each of the groups. In 1984, a tricameral parliament was created to provide Coloureds and Indians with strictly limited political powers, alongside a dominant White Assembly. Each of the three chambers was empowered to take charge of its own schools through its own departments of education. Therefore, the last years of the apartheid system of education saw White learners attending schools under the control of the House of Assembly (HOA), Coloured learners in schools represented by the House of Representatives (HOR), and Indian learners under the directorship of the House of Delegates (HOD). Black learners had no system of their own, nor any political power, and were placed under the control of the Department of Education and Training (DET), run under the HOA. Four additional departments of education were in control of schools in the ‘independent’ homelands of Bophuthatswana, Ciskei, Transkei and Venda (Fiske & Ladd, 2004). The result of such an organizational structure of education meant the existence of a national Department of Education that was supported by a number of separate education departments.
The resources and outcomes of Indian education most closely approximated White education in the late 1980s, substantially ahead of Coloured education. Black learners, who numbered 7.1 million (or 78.1% of all learners), were the most educationally disadvantaged, and if they received schooling in rural areas matters were worse. 24% of the DET’s Black learners received education in
farm schools in rural areas, where great inadequacies and inequalities existed in comparison to urban schools. At the time, a mere 3% of the total of 5 782 rural schools offered schooling beyond Grade 7 (or Standard 5), while 21% of rural schools did not offer schooling beyond Grade 4 (or Standard 2) (Hofmeyr & Buckland, 1992). Fataar (1997:341) provides evidence that, despite inadequate and unequal educational opportunities for Black learners, their numbers grew exponentially between 1953 and 1988 (see Table 2.2, below).
CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION
1.1. THE LEARNING-TO-READ PROBLEM IN ITS SOUTH AFRICAN CONTEXT
1.2. RESEARCH QUESTIONS FOR THIS STUDY
1.3. STRUCTURE OF THE THESIS
CHAPTER 2: THE SOUTH AFRICAN SCHOOLING SYSTEM
2.1. THE SOUTH AFRICAN EDUCATIONAL CONTEXT
2.2. THE TRANSFORMATION OF EDUCATIONAL STRUCTURES
2.3. OUTCOMES BASED EDUCATION AND CURRICULUM 2005: CURRICULUM REFORMS IN SOUTH AFRICA
2.4. THE LANGUAGE PROFILE OF SOUTH AFRICA
2.5. LANGUAGE-IN-EDUCATION POLICIES
2.6. LANGUAGE COMPLEXITIES IN SOUTH AFRICAN SCHOOLS
CHAPTER 3: READING LITERACY LITERATURE REVIEW
3.1. DEFINITIONS OF LITERACY
3.2. READING LITERACY AS CONCEPTUALIZED BY THE RNCS
3.3. FACTORS ASSOCIATED WITH READING ACHIEVEMENT AT LEARNER, HOME AND SCHOOL-LEVEL
CHAPTER 4: THE PROGRESS IN INTERNATIONAL READING LITERACY STUDY (PIRLS) 2006
4.1. PIRLS 2006 FRAMEWORK FOR LITERACY
4.2. ASPECTS OF READING LITERACY
4.3. PIRLS 2006 ASSESSMENT INSTRUMENTS
4.4. RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODOLOGY: PIRLS 2006
4.5. SAMPLING DESIGN FOR PIRLS 2006
4.6. TRANSLATION OF PIRLS 2006 ASSESSMENT INSTRUMENTS
4.7. DATA COLLECTION, MONITORING AND SCORING
4.8. DATA PROCESSING
CHAPTER 5: CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK, RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS
5.1. CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK
5.2. A SOUTH AFRICAN MODEL OF READING EFFECTIVENESS
5.3. RESEARCH QUESTIONS
5.4. RESEARCH DESIGN
5.5. DESIGN ISSUES
CHAPTER 6: EXPLANATORY VARIABLES AT LEARNER, CLASS AND SCHOOL-LEVELS AND PIRLS 2006 ACHIEVEMENT
6.1. SOUTH AFRICAN READING ACHIEVEMENT AND INTERNATIONAL COMPARISON
6.2. SOUTH AFRICAN GRADE 5 ACHIEVEMENT BY LANGUAGE, GENDER AND PROVINCE
6.3. SOUTH AFRICAN GRADE 5 LEARNER BENCHMARK ACHIEVEMENT BY LANGUAGE
6.4. LEARNER-LEVEL EXPLANATORY VARIABLES
6.5. SCHOOL-LEVEL EXPLANATORY VARIABLES
CHAPTER 7: BUILDING LEARNER- AND SCHOOL-LEVEL MODELS WITH HLM
7.1. VARIATION BETWEEN LANGUAGE GROUPINGS
7.2. BUILDING THE LEARNER-LEVEL MODEL
7.3. BUILDING THE SCHOOL-LEVEL MODEL
7.4. SUMMARY OF MODELS TO BE USED IN HLM ANALYSIS
CHAPTER 8: HIERARCHICAL LINEAR MODEL RESULTS
8.1. RESULTS FOR THE OVERALL SOUTH AFRICAN MODEL AT LEARNER- AND SCHOOL-LEVEL
8.2. RESULTS FOR THE AFRIKAANS MODEL
8.3. RESULTS FOR THE ENGLISH MODEL
8.4. RESULTS FOR THE NGUNI MODEL
8.5. RESULTS FOR THE SOTHO MODEL
8.6. RESULTS FOR THE TSHIVENDA MODEL
8.7. SUMMARY OF RESULTS
CHAPTER 9: CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS
9.1. SUMMARY OF THE RESEARCH APPROACH
9.2. SUMMARY OF RESEARCH QUESTIONS AND RESULTS
9.3. REFLECTIONS ON THE CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK
9.4. METHODOLOGICAL REFLECTIONS
9.5. LIMITATIONS OF THE STUDY
9.6. CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS
