Spotlight on basic education completion and foundational learning: South Africa

The South African Spotlight report is intended to provide timely, evidence-based diagnostics to support the country’s education leaders in their efforts to achieve out-of-school, completion, and foundational learning targets (benchmarks) through research, dialogue with the Department of Basic Education officials and advocacy activities. 

This country report is part of a series spotlighting early grade learning in African countries. Research conducted for the report systematically analyses the extent to which government vision is reflected in concrete, actionable objectives to improve basic skills (e.g., in mathematics) and how these intentions are translated into fit-for-purpose curricula and workbooks, teacher support mechanisms, and learning assessment. 

The Spotlight series uses data collected by mapping four pedagogical inputs together—the national curriculum, learner workbooks, teacher guides, and learning assessments— with insights from semi-structured interviews and classroom observations to discuss the extent to which learners are provided with coherent opportunities to learn foundational skills. The series investigates foundational learning policy alignment using a systematic approach that combines mapping competencies found across a country’s education system and looks into all levels of curriculum implementation from the intended curriculum to the curriculum as it is enacted in the classroom.