While improvements have been made towards a more equitable education system in South Africa, outcomes remain well below those of other middle-income countries. Even within Africa, South Africa lags behind, with weak foundational skills in areas such as reading and numeracy, especially amongst younger learners. Only 20% of South African children can read by age 10, with the country coming last in an international reading literacy study (PIRLS 2021). There is rising concern over the adverse long-range implications for skills in the labour market, poverty reduction and social cohesion.

Several political and non-political factors continue to hinder educational development in South Africa, including weak education planning capacity, poor quality teacher training at universities, an electoral system which rewards politicians who tend to focus on visible phenomena such as school infrastructure and certification, and corruption within the schooling system and institutions as a whole. The South African experience confirms that a more politically informed approach to education policy analysis is illuminating and necessary, leading to considerations into the political economy of education.

Professor Martin Gustafsson, together with Dr Nick Taylor (JET Education Services), have been investigating the political economy and ideology of South Africa’s educational development, paying special attention to the acquisition of foundational skills in the early grades. The study forms part of the international Research in Improving Systems of Education (RISE) programme, a comparative meta-study aimed at presenting new global insights into the political economy of schooling. This focuses on understanding why foundational skills among learners are so low in developing countries, and how this problem can be resolved.