Education Quality in South Africa and Sub

EDUCATION QUALITY IN SOUTH AFRICA AND SUB-SAHARAN AFRICA: AN ECONOMIC APPROACH By Nicholas Spaull March 2015 Thesis presented for the degree: Doctor of Philosophy (Economics) Supervisor: Professor Servaas van der Berg University of Stellenbosch | Department of Economics 1 Stellenbosch University https://scholar.sun.ac.za DECLARATION By submitting this dissertation electronically, I declare that the entirety of the work contained therein is my own, original work, that I am the sole author thereof (save to the extent explicitly otherwise stated), that reproduction and publication thereof by Stellenbosch University will not infringe any third party rights and that I have not previously in its entirety or in part submitted it for obtaining any qualification. Copyright © 2015 Stellenbosch University All rights reserved Notwithstanding the above, the following chapters of the present work have been submitted for publication and subsequently accepted. The publication of these articles does not infringe upon my right to use these articles in this dissertation or to publish the completed dissertation via Stellenbosch University’s SunScholar portal. These publications are listed in full below: Chapter 1: Spaull, N., (2013). Poverty & Privilege: Primary school inequality in South Africa. International Journal of Educational Development. Vol. 33, p.436–447. Chapter 3 Spaull, N., and Kotze, J. (2015). Starting behind and staying behind in South Africa: The case of insurmountable learning deficits in mathematics. International Journal of Educational Development. Vol 41 (March) pp12-24 Chapter 4: Spaull, N., Taylor, S., (2015). Access to what? Creating a composite measure of educational quantity and educational quality for 11 African countries. Comparative Education Review. Vol. 58, No. 1. Spaull, N., Taylor, S., (2014). Combining educational access and educational quality into a single statistic (PB 14/31), World Bank Jobs Knowledge Platform. Cape Town. Chapter 5: Taylor, S., and Spaull, N. (2015). Measuring access to learning over a period of increased access to schooling: The case of Southern and Eastern Africa since 2000. International Journal of Educational Development. Vol. 41 (March) p.47-59 2 Stellenbosch University https://scholar.sun.ac.za Declarations with respect to co-authoring: With regard to Chapter 2, the nature and scope of my contribution were as follows: Nature of contribution Extent of contribution (%) Developing the method of calibrating learning deficits using multiple data 80% sets, analysis of the following datasets: Systemic Evaluation, SACMEQ, TIMSS, majority of the write-up and editing of the paper. The following co-author(s) have contributed to Chapter 2: Name E-mail address Nature of contribution Extent of contribution (%) Janeli Janeli.kotze@g Helped with the literature review and the 20% Kotze mail.com analysis of the NSES data. Signature of candidate: Date: 1 October 2014 Declaration by co-authors: The undersigned hereby confirm that: 1. the declaration above accurately reflects the nature and extent of the contributions of the candidate and the co-authors to Chapter 2, 2. no other authors contributed to Chapter 2 besides those specified above, and 3. potential conflicts of interest have been revealed to all interested parties and that the necessary arrangements have been made to use the material in Chapter 2 of this dissertation. Signature of co-author: Date: 1 October 2014 3 Stellenbosch University https://scholar.sun.ac.za With regard to Chapters 4 and 5, the nature and scope of my contributions were as follows: Nature of contribution Extent of contribution (%) Chapter 4: Developing the conceptual framework behind the access-to- 80% quality measure, undertaking the literature review, analysing the DHS and SACMEQ data to create the composite statistic. Writing up the analysis. Chapter 5: Automating the data-combination process in STATA and 40% generating graphs and tables for the analysis. Helped with the write-up and editing of the paper. The following co-authors have contributed to Chapter 4 and 5: Name E-mail address Nature of contribution Extent of contribution (%) Stephen [email protected] Chapter 4: Conceptual development of 20% Taylor v.za the access-quality measure and editing the paper. Chapter 5: First co-author contributing to the write-up of the research, the data 60% analysis and sensitivity checks, and the literature review. Signature of candidate: Date: 1 October Declaration by co-authors: The undersigned hereby confirm that: 1. the declaration above accurately reflects the nature and extent of the contributions of the candidate and the co-authors to Chapters 4 and 5, 2. no other authors contributed to Chapters 4 and 5 besides those specified above, and 3. potential conflicts of interest have been revealed to all interested parties and that the necessary arrangements have been made to use the material in Chapters 4 and 5 of this dissertation. Signature of co-author: Date: 2 October 2014 4 Stellenbosch University https://scholar.sun.ac.za ABSTRACT Education has always occupied a central role in the discipline of economics, featuring prominently in the theoretical constructs of the discipline and, more recently, in their empirical applications. While one can trace the origins of Human Capital theory all the way back to Adam Smith’s ‘The Wealth of Nations’, the two major advances in our understanding of education’s role in economic development transpired in the last 50 years. The first was half way through the 20th century with the work of work of Mincer (1958), Schultz (1961) and particularly that of Becker (1962) who formalized the idea of Human Capital. The second advance was at the turn of the 21st century when Hanushek and Kimko (and later Wößmann) incorporated measures of education quality into their models of economic growth. This latest strand of research serves as the point of departure for this thesis, placing education quality at the centre of the discussion. The thesis begins by focussing on the South African case and highlighting three broad issues that characterise education in the country: (1) the high levels of inequality that can be seen when comparing student performance by race, language, geographic location and socioeconomic status. New evidence is presented to show that South Africa does indeed have two public schooling systems, reiterating and confirming the findings of other South African scholars. (2) Using intra-survey benchmarks of student achievement, Chapter 2 develops a new method of quantifying learning deficits in mathematics by using three different datasets covering grades 3, 4, 5, 6 and 9. The learning gap between the poorest 60% of students and the wealthiest 20% of students is found to be approximately three grade-levels in grade 3 and grows to between four and five grade-levels by grade 9. (3) The focus then shifts to the complex issue of language and performance, which is addressed in Chapter 3. Here the aim is to exploit an unusual occurrence whereby a large group of South African students were tested twice, one month apart, on the same test in different languages. Using a simplified difference-in-difference methodology it becomes possible to identify the causal impact of writing a test in English when English is not a student’s home language. The final two chapters of the thesis widen the remit of analysis to include 11 countries in Sub-Saharan Africa, viz. Kenya, Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, South Africa, Swaziland, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia and Zimbabwe. Here the aim is to develop a composite measure of education access and education quality by combining household data (DHS) on grade completion and survey data (SACMEQ) on cognitive outcomes. The new measure, termed access-to-literacy and access-to-numeracy is reported for all countries and important sub-groups in Chapter 4. The method is then used in Chapter 5 to compare access-to-learning over a period of increased access to schooling (2000-2007). In all countries there was an improvement in access to literacy and numeracy, challenging the widely held perception that there is always an access-quality trade-off in education. In particular, girls and those in relatively poor households benefited most from this improvement in access to literacy and numeracy. The thesis ultimately concludes that if children are to realize their full potential, the expansion of physical access to schooling in the developing world must be accompanied by meaningful learning opportunities. The acquisition of knowledge, skills and values must be the central aim of educational expansion. 5 Stellenbosch University https://scholar.sun.ac.za OPSOMMING Onderwys het nog altyd ŉ rol in ekonomie as vakgebied gespeel. Dit is verstaanbaar, want vaardighede en onderwys was nog altyd ŉ prominente deel van die teoretiese konstrukte en meer onlangs ook van empiriese toepassings in die dissipline. Terwyl die oorsprong van menslike-kapitaalteorie teruggevoer kan word na Adam Smith se Wealth of Nations, het die twee grootste deurbrake met die verstaan van onderwys se rol in ekonomiese ontwikkeling in die laaste vyftig jaar plaasgevind. Die werk van Mincer (1958), Schultz (1961) en veral Becker (1962), wat in die middel van die vorige eeu formele gestalte aan die begrip ‘menslike kapitaal’ gegee het, was die eerste deurbraak. Die tweede deurbraak was teen die eeuwending toe Hanushek en Kimko (en later Wößmann) maatstawwe van onderwysgehalte in hulle ekonomiese groeimodelle begin insluit het. Hierdie nuwe tak van die navorsing plaas onderwys vierkant in die sentrum en dien as vertrekpunt vir hierdie proefskrif. Die proefskrif begin deur aandag op drie breë kwessies te vestig wat kenmerkend is van onderwys in Suid-Afrika: (1) Die hoë vlakke van ongelykheid volgens ras, taal, geografiese gebied en sosio-ekonomiese status in studente se prestasie. (2) In hoofstuk 2 word ŉ nuwe metode aangebied om leeragterstrande kwantitatief te meet met behulp van norme van leerlingprestasie in skoolvlak-opnames vir grade 3, 4, 5, 6 en 9. Daar word bevind dat die leergaping tussen die armste 60% en die rykste 20% van studente in graad 3 ongeveer drie jaar is en teen graad 9 tot vier of vyf jaar aangroei.

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