In the 2011/12 financial years, the Department of Basic Education (DBE) commissioned a School Monitoring Survey of ordinary public schools to monitor progress towards the achievement of some of the goals and indicators set out in the Action Plan to 2014: Towards the Realisation of Schooling 2025 and the Delivery Agreement. This was done through the School Monitoring Survey 2011/12 which used a range of indicators aligned with the Sector Plan to measure system performance nationally.

The Department has produced reports since 2011 on progress made in the sector towards the realisation of the sector’s goals. The Delivery Agreement for Outcome 1 which was signed in 2010 as well as the sector plan, Action Plan to 2014: Towards the realisation of Schooling 2025 (the ‘Action Plan’) being championed by the Department of Basic Education (DBE) are the basis for this report. Reporting sources for these reports has included the School Monitoring Survey of 2011.

In 2011/2012 the Department of Basic Education (DBE) in partnership with the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), commissioned an independent formative evaluation of approved DBE workbooks and textbooks. Selected language and mathematics workbooks for Grade 3, 6 and 9 as well as selected Siyavula textbooks for Grade 10 were evaluated. The focus of the evaluation was on the quality and utilisation of DBE approved workbooks and textbooks in South African public schools.

In 2012/2013, the Department of Performance Monitoring and Evaluation (DPME) in the Presidency, in partnership with the Department of Basic Education (DBE) commissioned an Impact Evaluation of the Grade R programme. The evaluation was based on a complex statistical method used to estimate the effect of having attended Grade R on learning outcomes later in primary school.

The study found an overall positive impact of Grade R on later learning outcomes in both language and mathematics. The estimated benefits were somewhat larger for language than for mathematics, though in both cases the size of the effects were fairly small relative to what one might have hoped to see. In some schools Grade R has contributed towards better learning, but in other schools it has not. Clearly one cannot take it for granted that Grade R is always quality Grade R. An improvement plan based on recommendations from the report has already been approved by the Department of Basic Education.

The Mind the Gap study guides for Grade 12 learners were developed and distributed in 2012 in an effort to assist Grade 12 learners to mind-the-gap between failing and passing, by bridging-the-gap in learners’ understanding of commonly tested concepts so candidates can pass the National Senior Certificate (NSC).  A Randomised Control Trial (RCT) was conducted in 2012 in an effort to measure the impact of the study guides on performance in the NSC. The report on the evaluation is provided below.