Press releases

Press releases
  • Posted on 3 November 2023
  • 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 […]

  • READ MORE
  • Posted on 16 May 2023
  • 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, […]

  • READ MORE
  • Posted on 17 January 2023
  • 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 […]

  • READ MORE
  • Posted on 5 April 2022
  • 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 […]

  • READ MORE
  • Posted on 31 January 2022
  • 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?

  • READ MORE
  • Posted on 21 September 2021
  • 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 […]

  • READ MORE
  • Posted on 26 July 2021
  • 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.

  • READ MORE
  • Posted on 22 February 2021
  • 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 […]

  • READ MORE
  • Posted on 14 December 2020
  • 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 […]

  • READ MORE
  • Posted on 26 November 2020
  • 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 […]

  • READ MORE
  • Posted on 6 October 2020
  • 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 […]

  • READ MORE
  • Posted on 3 September 2020
  • 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.

  • READ MORE
  • Posted on 7 August 2020
  • The gendered impact of the Covid-19 school closures places girls at higher risk of dropout

  • In South Africa and other developing countries, school closures carry a high risk for marginalised girls because of exposure to sexual exploitation and teenage pregnancy while outside the classroom.
    “Protracted school closures exacerbate gender inequalities, which is why girls are particularly vulnerable to dropout,” says […]

  • READ MORE
  • Posted on 23 July 2020
  • We need to ramp up our response to deal with dropout during the Covid-19 pandemic

  • The Zero Dropout Campaign is concerned that the latest decision to close public schools will negatively impact vulnerable learners from households hard hit by the Covid-19 pandemic. “The fact of the matter is that school closures carry high social and economic costs, particularly in disadvantaged communities, and increases the risk of learners dropping out,” says […]

  • READ MORE
  • Posted on 15 June 2020
  • Channelling the energy and vibrancy of youth activism into dropout prevention strategies

  • The June 1976 protests have been credited with changing the socio-political landscape of the country and giving new impetus to the fight against Apartheid. This movement set a precedent for youth activism, which not only had the potential to change individual schools and the education system but society at large. Since then, various youth-led movements […]

  • READ MORE
  • Posted on 20 May 2020
  • No school must be left behind in the 2020 recovery plan

  • The Zero Dropout Campaign calls on education officials to ensure that school recovery plans are implemented safely and consistently, particularly in lower quintile schools that do not have access to running water and sanitation. “We support the decision to complete the 2020 academic year, provided all reasonable measures are taken to protect learners, support staff, […]

  • READ MORE
  • Posted on 20 April 2020
  • Learners in need of psychosocial support services amid reports of a spike in domestic violence complaints

  • Protracted school closures can lead to an increase in learner dropout, which is why we are urging non-profit organisations (NPOs) to revise their dropout preventative strategies to respond to the long-term effects of the lockdown. We also urge education officials to put measures in place to address learner disengagement, considering many are falling behind with […]

  • READ MORE
  • Posted on 17 March 2020
  • We call on parents and communities to do their part to mitigate the impact of the Covid-19 fallout

  • The national state of disaster declared by President Cyril Ramaphosa is an opportunity for parents and communities to do their part to mitigate the impact of school closures by ensuring that children are safe, emotionally supported, and do not fall behind academically. “School closures, even for short periods, carry economic and social costs, especially in […]

  • READ MORE
  • Posted on 26 February 2020
  • Government’s spending priorities on Basic Education should address school dropout

  • In his Budget speech, Finance Minister Tito Mboweni announced that R396 billion will be allocated to learning and culture. Education usually gets the lion’s share of the Budget, but how are our public funds supporting school dropout prevention strategies? “We are concerned that the government is not strategically addressing the high dropout rate with targeted […]

  • READ MORE
  • Posted on 14 February 2020
  • Tackling the crisis of youth unemployment starts with reducing the school dropout rate

  • President Cyril Ramaphosa unveiled his government’s new six-pronged plan to tackle the high rate of youth unemployment during his State of the Nation Address, but this approach lacks the targeted policies needed to dramatically address the hidden crisis of learners dropping out of school. “The fact of the matter is that 44% of unemployed young […]

  • READ MORE