Covid-19 Impacted Low Literacy Rates, South African Minister Says

An international literacy study (PIRLS) has confirmed that 81% of South Africa's grade 4 children could not read for meaning in any language in 2021, almost exactly the same proportion as in 2011. This means that a decade of slow progress in reading has been wiped out. More than 12,000 South African learners from 321 schools participated in the 2021 round of PIRLS. The study is conducted every five years. Of the 57 countries and regions that participated, South Africa performed the worst.

According to GroundUp, learning losses associated with the Covid-19 pandemic are the main reason for the slide backwards since 2011 with Departmentment of Basic Education (DBE) Minister Angie Motshekga pointing to the outbreak as the cause for the nation's performance. "The magnitude of our decline relating to the pandemic does not come as a surprise. South Africa was amongst the countries most actively gauging impacts on learning outcomes during the pandemic and the results we see now in PIRLS are in line with the earlier findings that we did say as the department," she said.

However, a research paper published by Professor Ursula Hoadley from the University of Cape Town's Education Department mapped out learning losses in public schools. She criticised the DBE for a "business as usual" approach, noting that there are no nationally coordinated programmes or attempts to recoup class time and learning losses. One notable exception is in the Western Cape where the provincial Department of Education recently launched its R1.2-billion #BackOnTrack campaign.

Hoadley's paper was released to coincide with the PIRLS results, showing that the Department of Basic Education has done almost nothing to help children catch up on lost time.