Western Cape launches R1.2bn campaign to reverse Covid-19 learning losses

The Western Cape education department has launched an ambitious drive to reverse the learning losses caused by the coronavirus pandemic, setting aside R1.2bn over the next three years to try to improve pupils’ language and maths skills.

“Education fell off a cliff in the pandemic,” said Western Cape education minister David Maynier. “The learning crisis, if you take a longer-term view, is a much more serious crisis than the energy crisis,” he said.

The intermittent school closures imposed by the government in response to Covid-19 caused huge disruption to education, with pupils losing an estimated 155 school days in 2020 and 2021, equivalent to three-quarters of a school year. In a study published in 2022, researchers estimated that most pupils were a year behind the level they would have been if not for the pandemic.

Even before Covid-19 struck, SA’s schoolchildren were floundering, with 78% of grade 4 pupils unable to read for meaning, according to the 2016 Progress in International Reading and Literacy Study (Pirls). The results of the 2021 Pirls study, due to be published next week, are expected to be worse.

The Western Cape’s “back on track campaign” will provide targeted support to 333 schools, more than 126,000 pupils and almost 9,000 teachers. It builds on a previous initiative to provide support to foundation-phase teachers and pupils at 1,100 schools that kicked off in 2022.

The initiative includes setting aside extra time each week for reading and maths, and extra classes on Saturdays. All grades in the foundation phase will be included in the initiative, grade 4 in the intermediate phase, grades 7 and 8 in the senior phase, and grades 10 and 12 in the last stage of secondary school.

The campaign will be evaluated by the Western Cape education department’s systemic tests and term marks, said Maynier. The systemic tests gauge maths and language skills and are written once a year by pupils in grades 3, 6, and 9. Western Cape is the only province to administer these tests, and has done so every year since 2002, except for 2020. In 2021, the results of the tests showed the loss of face-to-face teaching during the pandemic had erased years of steady gains.

Western Cape is doing things differently to other provinces, said Stellenbosch University education researcher Nic Spaull, and has rolled out a new workbook programme for grade 1’s in isiXhosa and Afrikaans schools as part of its strategy for improving reading skills. This programme will be expanded one grade at a time through the foundation phase to reach grade 3 by 2025.

Zero Dropout Campaign programme director Merle Mansfield said accelerated learning programmes, which aim to help pupils catch up on learning losses, were considered best practice for countries with high grade repetition rates and a crisis of learning in the foundation phase. “In 2021, it was found that by the end of primary school, 36% of learners were already over-age and by grade 12 that proportion rose to 56.3%,” she said.

The Western Cape’s new education campaign comes at a vital time, as the education losses experienced during the lockdowns could undermine the development of an entire generation for years to come, she said.

kahnt@businesslive.co.za