Primary education in crisis : why South African schoolchildren underachieve in reading and mathematics
Primary education in crisis pulls together the wealth of research on health, poverty, resources, language and teaching as factors in academic achievement in reading, writing and mathematics. At the centre of the book is an analysis of the published studies that sytematically document what teachers teach and fail to teach, and why it is that teaching is at the heart of the crisis in primary education. The author suggest that there are no quick fixes, but only hard choices and that, for reform to succeed, it must be evidence-based
xiv, 162 pages : illustrations ; 25 cm
9780702177071, 0702177075
212623156
TWO NATIONS AND THE BIMODAL DISTRIBUTION OF ACHIEVEMENT
Government initiatives
International initiatives
School improvement project evaluations
HEALTH AND UNDERACHIEVEMENT
Malnutrition
Parasite infections
Hearing loss
Asthma
Fetal alcohol syndrome
HIV/Aids
POVERTY AND PERFORMANCE
How the relationship has been understood in the extant literature
Poverty in South Africa
Poverty, home language codes and reading practices
Poverty, child labour and family structure
Families without fathers, families without parents
EXPENDITURE AND OUTCOMES
Are we spending enough?
Equal treatment, equal educational opportunity and educational adequacy
Linking resources to achievement
Resources matter conditionally
LANGUAGE AND LEARNING
Research evidence
Learning in an additional language and educational failure
Alternative explanations
Language transition
TEACHING AND KNOWING
What teachers know
Time, coverage, pacing and sequencing
Pygmalion effect and teacher expectations
Textbooks and readers
Teaching methods
EVIDENCE-INFORMED CONVERSATIONS
What is to be done?
What will constitute conclusive evidence?
Evidence about capacity
Unintended negative consequences
Evidence-based policy of evidence-informed conversations
Building education research communities