New National Survey Reveals SA’s Experiences of Education and Dropout 

School Dropout: Advocacy to Action   As South Africa continues to celebrate 2024’s record-breaking matric results and starts the new school year, it is important for us to interrogate the progress of our education system not just over the past year, but the past 30.  Last year marked Zero Dropout Campaign’s fifth year and during that […]

Matric Results –Throughput Rate Worryingly Regresses 

Zero Dropout Campaign notes the release of the 2024 National Senior Certificate (NSC) results by the Department of Basic Education (DBE) and congratulates the class of 2024.   Of learners who sat down for the final matric exams at the end of last year, 87.3% obtained an NSC. This is a historic result, and an encouraging […]

Unpacking school dropout in the 2023 General Household Survey

The statistics within provided great insight to the state of our education system as well as issues relative to our mandate such as availability, accessibility, and dropout. Attendance of individuals older than five years old When children miss out on crucial developmental phases in education, they end up struggling. The GHS shows that this is […]

BELA Bill passes despite falling short on dropout prevention.

The Zero Dropout Campaign notes the National Council of Province (NCOP) passing the Basic Education Law Amendment (BELA) Bill this morning. Last Thursday, the NCOP made a hurried attempt to pass this Bill, and in the process almost violated its own procedural requirements. “This piece of legislation will have a profound impact on the education […]

Zero Dropout Campaign disappointed by NCOP’s rushed attempt to pass BELA Bill

The Zero Dropout Campaign welcomes the postponement of today’s scheduled vote on the Basic Education Laws Amendment (BELA) Bill. The postponement was due to the National Council of Provinces (NCOP) not following its own procedures in yet another attempt to rush this and other crucial pieces of legislation through Parliament to avoid them lapsing when […]

The DBE’s new GEC could be a dropout game changer, or exacerbator

Recently, the Department of Basic Education (DBE) published its Annual Performance Plan for the next financial year. Of particular interest to the Zero Dropout Campaign in the plan is the implementation and progress of the new General Education Certificate (GEC) pilot. According to the DBE’s plan, “The GEC recognises formal learning that has occurred by […]

Admitting that there’s a dropout problem is just the first step, Mr President

At the annual Basic Education Sector Lekgotla held recently, President Cyril Ramaphosa raised his concerns about South Africa’s learner dropout rate, which he said was “still unacceptably high”…

NEW RESEARCH – School Dropout: Reading Between the Lines

As the nation eagerly anticipates the release of matric results in South Africa, the disconnect between these results and the underlying dropout crisis unveils a concerning narrative that demands urgent attention.  “It’s crucial to acknowledge that the matric results, while a cause for celebration for many, do not paint the full picture of educational attainment […]

MTBPS – Education allocation must address school dropout.

Today’s Medium Term Budget Policy Statement (MTBPS) will play a crucial role in the future of our education sector. Since Finance Minister Enoch Godongwana’s Budget Speech in February this year, there have been numerous reports released with worrying insights to the state of our education system, particularly the levels of literacy in South Africa. In […]

PIRLS 2021 – Accelerated learning programmes urgently needed to cure COVID-19 learning losses

PIRLS 2021 & COVID-19 Today’s release of the Progress in International Reading Literacy Study (PIRLS) has sounded alarms regarding the state of learning in South Africa. The study is the first since the COVID-19 pandemic and found that 81% of Grade 4 learners in South Africa cannot read for meaning in any language. In 2016, […]

The matric pass rate lacks context. Here’s why

At the start of each year, South Africans are told how many learners passed their matric exams, a figure that tends to act as a barometer for the health of our schooling system. Yet, it tells us very little, or nothing at all, about how and why some learners succeed, and others do not. In […]

Early Warning Systems are the first line of defense in the campaign to prevent school dropout

Imagine a class of 100 Grade 1s on their first day of school, bright-eyed and eager to learn. Of those 100 learners, at least 40 will drop out of school before finishing matric. School dropout has become normalised in many communities, deepening inter-generational poverty, joblessness and inequality. Before the Covid-19 pandemic, researchers estimated that between […]

What factors make a learner more likely to drop out?

The Covid-19 pandemic has seen a rise in learners not attending school and who may permanently drop out. In November last year, the Basic Education Department (DBE) revealed that around 200 000 learners did not return to school during a six-month period. Even before the pandemic, around 40% of learners who started school in Grade 1 would drop out before completing matric. So, what makes a learner more likely to drop out?

The inaugural Zero Dropout Action Summit to showcase the findings of a four-year pilot on dropout prevention

Before the Covid-19 pandemic, school dropout was a ‘hidden crisis’ barely featuring on the national agenda even though it is commonplace in many communities. The pandemic has brought South Africa’s dropout crisis to the fore, necessitating schools to take immediate action to get learners back into the classroom. But it’s not going to be easy […]

As schools reopen, we need to rapidly track and trace absent learners

Schools are scheduled to open today at a time when school attendance is the lowest in two decades. Fewer learners have returned to school this year compared to pre-pandemic attendance figures, and the dropout rate has tripled. “The longer it takes to get our learners back to class, the less likely they are to return,” says Merle Mansfield, Programme Director of the Zero Dropout Campaign.

Is the matric pass rate an accurate measure of the health of our schooling system?

The matric pass rate is traditionally considered a measure of the health of our schooling system and a key performance indicator by which the Minister of Basic Education is held to account. But, what does this statistic actually tell us about learners’ pathways through school, particularly during a pandemic? “Before the pandemic, around 2 out […]

We can build back better after Covid-19 with a coordinated dropout strategy

Tracking absenteeism at schools is integral to dropout prevention, even more so with many learners not returning to class because of the Covid-19 pandemic. Despite the importance of accurate data and information in uncertain times, we don’t have systematic and complete learner-level data from the government, according to new research commissioned by the Zero Dropout […]

Building a resilient education system starts with fixing our broken schools

Dropout is rarely about a single event. It follows a long process of disengagement caused by disruptions to learning, which is why anything that hampers teaching and learning, such as the lack of access to resources and infrastructure problems, can elevate the risk of school dropout. “The fact that infrastructure remains a barrier in spaces where learners are already contending with socio-economic challenges outside of the school space […]

It’s high time we factor dropout into policy and planning frameworks and set reduction targets

On Tuesday, 6 October, the Zero Dropout Campaign addressed Members of the Portfolio Committee on Basic Education about the country’s dropout crisis, exacerbated by the Covid-19 pandemic. “School closures, together with the economic impact of the lockdown, have placed learners already at risk of dropout into deeper financial, psychosocial and academic distress. Now more than […]

Bright new ideas to promote literacy in the time of Covid-19

The Covid-19 pandemic has unsettled learning in different ways. It has disrupted schooling and slammed the breaks on many after-school literacy programmes. Considering that 78% of Grade 4 learners cannot read for meaning in any language, after-school programmes play an important role in helping children with gaps in their foundational literacy.