Brahm Fleisch

University of the Witwatersrand | wits ·  Division of Educational Leadership and Policy Studies (ELPS)

Significant progress has been made in evaluating effective programmes to improve the teaching of early grade reading in the Global South. Although sustained and continuous independent reading is key to developing the habit of reading and reading proficiency, very little is known about effective classroom library or reading corner models for resourc...

The cost-effectiveness of human capital investments depends on their sustained impacts on productivity. We test for this in a randomized evaluation of two teacher professional development programs—Coaching and Training—aimed at improving the teaching of early-grade reading in South Africa. One year after participating in the programs, teachers in b...

Virtual communication holds the promise of enabling low-cost professional development at scale, but the benefits of in-person interaction might be difficult to replicate. We report on an experiment in South Africa comparing on-site with virtual coaching of public primary school teachers. After three years, on-site coaching improved students’ Englis...

For too long the weight of educational scholarship produced in South Africa has been limited to that simple and standard form called the literature review. Now, for the first time, education researchers are provided with an African-based text on the concepts and methods of conducting systematic reviews. In this exceptional work of editorship, Felix...

Over the past quarter century, the pages of the Journal of Educational Change have been filled with some of the most important and exciting thinking in the field. That said, three important challenges need to be addressed in the next decade if the Journal is to continue to hold its prominent position. The first relates to finding a way to diversify...

The Grade 2 learner results of the Early Grade Reading Study (EGRS) randomised control trial (RCT) in the North West province showed that the structured pedagogic intervention model that included instructional coaching, lesson plans, and quality learning materials was more cost-effective than a similar intervention model that excluded coaching. The...

Structured pedagogic programmes are emerging as a promising approach to address low learning outcomes in developing countries. The delivery model of these programmes matters, and on-site instructional coaching has been shown to be a key component. In this article, we report on a series of government-led randomised experiments in South African prima...

There is growing evidence of systematic underachievement of South African primary school learners in reading in English as the first additional language. There is a small but growing literature that provides insights, that is, causes, patterns and prevalence, into this phenomenon. Through a secondary analysis of a spelling component of a literacy t...

In many developing countries, children are far behind the grade-specific curriculum. This article reports on an impact evaluation of one promising initiative, the Reading Catch-Up Programme, which was designed for a subset of South African schoolchildren, who are known to be behind the grade-specific English (second language) curriculum in the midd...

This article illustrates the value of large-scale impact evaluations with counterfactual components. It begins by exploring the limitations of small-scale impact studies, which do not allow reliable inference to a wider population or which do not use valid comparison groups. The paper then describes the design features of a recent large-scale rando...

The article describes the background to, and implementation of, the Gauteng Primary Language and Mathematics Strategy (GPLMS) in South Africa from 2010 to 2014—an initiative aimed at system-wide instructional improvement in the Global South. Working in over 1000 underperforming primary schools in poor- and working-class communities, the government-...

Hargreaves (2002) suggested that vigorous social movements have the potential to improve the quality of (and increase the equity in) public education. This paper explores the role of Equal Education, an education social movement in South Africa led by university students and secondary school learners, in the process of educational change. Drawing o...

This article reports on a two-year evaluation of the Gauteng Primary Language and Mathematics Strategy (GPLMS), an innovative system-wide reform intervention designed to improve learning outcomes in Gauteng Province, South Africa. Using data from universal testing of all learners in 2008 on a provincial systemic evaluation, as well as data from the...

Although English Home Language and English First Additional Language marks from the National Senior Certificate (NSC) are used for university admission in South Africa, no studies have explored their predictive value. This paper shed light on English language marks and English language competence through a comparative analysis of NSC marks and Nati...

Although English Home Language and English First Additional Language marks from the National Senior Certificate (NSC) are used for university admission in South Africa, no studies have explored their predictive value. This paper shed light on English language marks and English language competence through a comparative analysis of NSC marks and Nati...

This paper reports on a mid-point evaluation of the Gauteng Primary Language and Mathematics Strategy (GPLMS), an innovative large-scale reform designed to improve learning outcomes. Using data from universal testing of all learners in 2008 on a provincial systemic evaluation, and data from the 2011 and 2012 Annual National Assessment (ANA) test, t...

Although the Equal Education (EE) social movement is focused on improving public education in South Africa, it is part of a much wider network of community-based organisations in Khayelitsha that are concerned with active citizenship issues relating to health (especially HIV/AIDS), sanitation and human rights awareness and litigation. The long-term...

This paper has two aims: to explore approaches to the measurement of children's daily travel to school in a context of limited geospatial data availability and to provide data regarding school choice and distance travelled to school in Soweto-Johannesburg, South Africa. The paper makes use of data from the Birth to Twenty cohort study (n = 1428) to...

Learning the language of the ‘other’ is part of a broader process of making good on the Constitution’s commitment to equal citizenship. However, this commitment comes with a strong caveat: we would never claim that it is of greater import than rights to adequate food, water, healthcare, social security or housing. Hillel’s rhetorical injunction – ‘...

The South Africa Schools Act requires every child to “attend school from the first school day of the year in which such learner reaches the age of seven years until the last day of the year in which such learner reaches the age of 15 years or the ninth grade, whichever comes first” (Republic of South Africa, 1996). This paper addresses three questi...

The first McKinsey & Company foray into the field, ‘‘How the World’s BestPerforming School Systems Come Out on Top’’, marked them as a ‘player’ in educational change space. While subject to extensive criticism, including in the pages of this journal, the first McKinsey & Company report was widely cited internationally by researchers, policy makers...

Using data from Birth to Twenty, a cohort of South African urban children, the current paper investigates the relationships between residential and school mobility and a set of educational outcomes. The findings provide some evidence of a positive association between changes in residence and numeracy and literacy scores, and school mobility was fou...

Can providing learner support materials, particularly custom-designed workbooks, improve primary mathematics achievement more cost effectively than providing conventional textbooks? To contribute to this debate, this paper reports on the findings of a study conducted in 2010 by a consortium of educational researchers at JET Education Services and U...

Incl. bibl., abstract Using data collected by the Birth-to-Twenty child cohort study in urban South Africa, this paper describes the patterns of schooling of a population of children born in the Greater Johannesburg area in April to June 1990. This paper examines the patterns of initial enrolment in Grade 1, transitions through grades, and trends i...

Online document. Incl. bibl.

Critics of school governing bodies (SGBs) – both on the left and on the right – tend to rely upon arguments that ignore significant portions of the act that created SGBs – the South African Schools Act (SASA) – the exact nature of the changes to SGBs wrought by amendments to the act and the manner in which the courts, in interpreting the act, have...

Brahm Fleish describes how the potential for conversations to be sites of learning can be undermined by those with conflicting agendas in a policy context in South Africa. This chapter exemplifies how trust and respect need to underpin the relationships of those involved in evidence-informed conversations if they are to solve rather than exacerbate...

Incl. abstracts in English, German, French, Spanish and Russian; tables and bibliographical references It has been widely assumed that South Africa has achieved universal basic education. Through an analysis of the 2001 census and two national enrolment datasets rather than statistical projections, this study re-examines this assumption and provide...

Despite significant and sustained gains recorded on the national secondary school leaving examinations between 1999–2004, South Africa’s large-scale secondary school reform has receive little international attention. Defenders of the reforms have argued that the ‘success’ in raising student achievement extended beyond gains in the percentage pass r...

The Constitution of the Republic of South Africa, 1996 allows the creation of independent educational institutions and permits such institutions to enforce admissions policies that discriminate between learners who wish to participate in the affairs of a given linguistic and cultural community and those who do not wish to participate in or advance...

The Education Action Zone programme in Gauteng province, South Africa, has been widely seen as a very successful school improvement initiative, with particular significance as it represents a unique model of top-down. bureaucratic accountability as a vehicle for turning- around dysfunctional secondary schools. In this article I evaluate the impact...

School choice is often identified with right-leaning, voucher-happy, market-oriented public school systems like those found in the United States. Thus the proposition that a social democratic state such as South Africa will offer many primary and secondary school learners far greater choice strikes many as counter-intuitive and implausible. The aut...

School choice is often identified with right-leaning, voucher-happy, market-oriented public school systems like those found in the United States. Thus, the proposition that a social democratic state such as South Africa will offer many primary and secondary school learners far greater choice strikes many as counter-intuitive and implausible. The au...

Finding Your Way in Qualitative Research. Elizabeth Henning with Wilhelm van Rensburg and Brigitte Smit (2004). Van Schaik, Pretoria, pp 179; ISBN 0 627 02545 5, reviewed by Jonathan D. Jansen Outcomes-based Assessment. JG Maree and WJ Fraser (eds) (2004). Heinemann, Sandown, pp 268; ISBN 079620440-3, reviewed by Beverley Malan Teaching-Learning Dy...

The constitutionality of school fees has attracted considerable public and academic debate of late. In her recent issue paper, Daria Roithmayr (2002) claims that the elimination of a user fees system in public schools is necessary in order to satisfy three constitutional requirements: (1) the right to access to basic education; (2) the right to an...

This article comments on leadership within mainstream literature on school effectiveness/improvement, where it is almost always considered to be a factor of change. The article argues that systemic school improvement, particularly for disadvantaged children, is inextricably linked to wider social, economic and political conditions - in South Africa...

This is a study of the South African National Bureau for Educational and Social Research from its founding in 1929 until the publication of the Bilingual School in 1943. It explores a number of major research projects that were undertaken by the Bureau in the 1930s including social research on the ‘poor white problem’, African education, IQ Testing...

The United States influenced the origins, elaboration, and implementation of the politics of knowledge between social science and policy in the South African National Bureau for Educational and Social Research. Divided into six sections, the historical analysis of the Bureau: (1) examined the context within which the Bureau emerged, the origins of...

Draws on a recently completed 2-year national study. Highlights some of the mental health service related problems in the schools, describes ways in which schools and mental health agencies (either singly or collaboratively) are trying to enhance the school life of children and strengthen their access to mental health services, and explores the imp...

The past two years have seen a significant shift in debates about the transformation of state and society in South Africa The focus has moved from concerns about the nature of the class struggle and strategies of opposition to questions about policy options. While this shift is clearly a necessary development, the debate needs to go one step furthe...

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Columbia University, 1995. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 284-310). Department: Education. Microfilm.

Typescript; issued also on microfilm. Thesis (Ph.D.)--Columbia University, 1995. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 284-310).

Incl. bibl.