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Why we need accelerated catch-up and how it could look.

Why we need accelerated catch-up and how it could look.

Children are getting stuck in our education system in many cases because they do not have the foundational literacy and numeracy skills to grasp the curriculum. We can see evidence of this in our incredibly high rate of repetition nationally.

In fact the majority of learners (between 55% and 59% ) in Grades 10, 11, and 12 are over-age for their grade. In a typical Grade 10, 11, or 12 class in South Africa, it is more common for learners to be over-age than to be the correct age-for-grade. There is also evidence of a strong bottleneck effect in the FET phase, whereby learners seem to get “stuck” in Grade 10 for two or more years, and only a fraction of learners manages to make it to Grade 12.

Further 78% of children in Grade 4 cannot read for meaning in any language in South Africa. These children are likely to continue lagging behind academically if they don’t get the support they need to stay in and succeed in school.

Being over-age for your Grade puts you at high risk of dropping out as research has shown that learners who get stuck in cycles of repetition often become disengaged and eventually drop out.

These blog posts and opinion pieces also state the need for an accelerated catch-up plan and share some of the research behind this:

OPINION: Now more than ever, we need to help learners catch up. Here’s why.
OPINION: Even before the pandemic, pupils were falling behind – how can we achieve a fundamental catch-up?
OPINION: We urgently need to address the challenge of school dropout
NIDS-CRAM findings reinforce the need for a national catch-up plan
OPINION: Before, during and after Covid-19 – An academic catch-up plan for South African learners
Why is foundational literacy important in the campaign against school dropout?

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Thank you to all who attended the CSTL One Community - SADC Collaborates Conference on November 23rd and 24th, 2023. Click here to view all recordings and pdf documents of keynote speaker presentations.

Translation * Traduction * Tradução

Disclaimer: The team at CSTL Pulse has utilised an online automated translator. As a result parts of the French and Portuguese translation may not be completely correct.

Avis de non-responsabilité : l'équipe de CSTL Pulse a utilisé un traducteur automatisé en ligne. Par conséquent, certaines parties de la traduction française et portugaise peuvent ne pas être tout à fait correctes.

Isenção de responsabilidade: a equipe do CSTL Pulse utilizou um tradutor automático online. Como resultado, partes da tradução francesa e portuguesa podem não estar completamente corretas.