Basic Education Minister, Mrs Angie Motshekga, supported by DBE senior managers, provided a comprehensive briefing to the Portfolio Committee on Basic Education on the recently released Progress in International Reading Literacy Study (PIRLS) for 2021, in which 57 countries participated. “Through PIRLS, the Department heeds the National Development Plan (NDP) call for South Africa to participate in international benchmarking against the best systems in the world to improve education outcomes, and not to compete, as reading comprehension and performance is interlinked. These findings were complemented by initial insights on reading literacy from the Early Learning National Assessment (ELNA) in Grade 1 for emerging literary skills and the national Systemic Evaluation study in Grade 3, that have clearly demonstrated the severity of learning losses suffered globally due to COVID-19”, the Minister said.
During the virtual briefing on 23 May 2023, Ms Mbinqo-Gigaba, Committee Chairperson, said that South Africans were obviously concerned about the PIRLS findings as learners are unable to read for meaning. “A reading culture should be nurtured in the early years, with classrooms providing learners with adequate reading resources in their various home languages to develop language and comprehension skills for all indigenous languages.”
A total of 12,426 Grade 4 learners in 321 schools and 9,317 Grade 6 learners in 253 schools were assessed. Grade 4 learners were representative of the 11 official languages and nine provinces, whilst the Grade 6 learners only represented Afrikaans and English. South Africa’s trend score from 2016 dropped significantly from 320 to 288 (a difference of 32 points). A total of 81% of Grade 4 and 56% of Grade 6 learners did not reach the benchmark of 400 points. Grade 6 learners scored 384 points, with Afrikaans learners scoring an average of 456. The best performing language was Afrikaans (387) and lowest Setswana (211). The Western Cape had the highest scores. The findings also indicated that girls achieved higher reading literacy scores than boys.
Dr Mark Chetty, Director for National Assessment at the DBE, delivered the presentation to the Committee saying, “A reading culture and literacy are interrelated; both context and complexity must be highlighted for decoding and language comprehension to organise thoughts, evaluate information and draw conclusions to analyse text to improve reading for meaning across all academic subjects. Dr Chetty indicated that, going forward, the PIRLS findings will be analysed and a detailed diagnostic report published. In addition, the DBE will be reviewing the National Integrated Reading Plan and reading literacy progress will be tracked through the Thrive by Five Index, measuring early learning, ELNA, tracking school readiness, a reading survey to track foundational reading skills in Grades 1 – 3; and systemic evaluation to measure the outcome of reading comprehension”.