Minister of Basic Education, Ms Siviwe Gwarube, hosted the World Bank (WB) Country Director, Ms Satu Kahkonen at the DBE Building on 11 November 2024, as part of her continued stakeholder engagement programme. The engagement between Minister Gwarube and Ms Kahkonen was intended to review the existing partnership between the DBE and the World Bank, whilst exploring possible new areas of collaboration.
Currently, the WB is supporting the DBE in Early Childhood Development (ECD), as well as exchange programmes aimed at building capacity and global knowledge in ECD. In recent years, the DBE and the WB cooperated in the success of the ECD Census, which was funded by the Lego Foundation. The purpose of the ECD Census was to develop the first Master list for ECD programmes and to integrate ECD programmes into the Education Management Information System (EMIS). The WB provided support on data collection tools, strategies and quality assurance processes. The ECD Census was completed in February 2022 and the results were launched in May 2022.
The DBE and the WB have also identified Early Grade Reading as the new area of support in the 7th Administration. Reflecting on the DBE-WB partnership in education, Deputy Director-General for Delivery and Support at the DBE, Ms Simoné Geyer, agreed that the partnership between the DBE and the WB has made significant contributions towards strengthening early learning in schools. “As part of developing critical strategies for implementing Early Grade Reading, both parties have been hosting a series of policy dialogues in South Africa and regionally. The WB has been part of the coalition of funders supporting the development of Benchmarks for African languages. This has included the development of reading assessments as part of the Funda Uphumelele National Survey. The WB has supported this work by funding a junior data analyst seconded to the DBE to help build capacity in data analysis, benchmarking and to add to the DBE capacity from February 2022 to June 2024,” she said.
During the engagement, Ms Kahkonen was pleased that the DBE was willing to sustain its partnership with the WB even further: “Our partnership in the key identified areas will ensure that South African schools have access to education data that will be reliable in improving learning outcomes”.
Minister Gwarube welcomed the contribution made by international organisations in support of the Basic Education Sector. “The improvement of literacy and numeracy; the institutionalisation of ECD and the implementation of Mother Tongue-based Bilingual Education (MTbBE) remains key focus areas. I extend my gratitude to the WB for its contribution towards education,” concluded Minister Gwarube.