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A thematic analysis of teachers’ experiences in implementing the Annual National Assessments (ANAs) policy in South Africa was presented in this chapter. Describing the lack of preparation and capacity building on behalf of policy makers, this chapter argued that teachers’ roles in the policy formulation of the ANAs positioned them as only policy implementers without agency. Two broad categories described the experiences. The first was concerned with the preparation process of assessments. The second was concerned with the implications of assessments, outlining the worry and fear in the use of results for teacher blaming culminating in a standoff between teacher unions and the ministry. The shift in the policy mandate expressed through increased reporting and monitoring requirements for poor performing schools reveals that the assessments deviated from being a diagnostic tool to testing for teacher accountability. Finally, the chapter concluded with a reflection on how the National Assessment Framework, set to replace the ANA policy, could be strengthened based on the opportunities revealed by the ANA policy implementation process.

Existing studies of school efficiency primarily specify teacher inputs as the number of teachers and perhaps the student-teacher ratio. As a result, there is no direct qualitative recognition of the learning environment. The purpose of this paper is to incorporate the learning environment directly into the assessment of school efficiency.

The authors employ data envelopment analysis to derive efficiency scores and the double-bootstrap truncated regression approach in Simar and Wilson’s (2007) Journal of Econometrics to quantify the sources of efficiency in 430 Queensland state primary schools. In the first stage, the outputs of student National Assessment Program-Literacy and Numeracy scores and the inputs of full-time equivalent teaching staff and cumulative capital expenditure per student are used to measure efficiency. In the second stage, the authors specify an index of community socio-educational advantage, class size, the share of teachers with postgraduate qualifications, funds spent on professional development, and surveyed opinions from parents/caregivers, students, staff and principals on the learning environment to explain these measures of efficiency.

Socio-economic background and the teaching environment affect school efficiency. Although not all variables related to teacher contribution are significant, there is evidence to suggest that teachers have a positive influence on student performance hence school efficiency. Teachers ability to clearly explain the requirements of schoolwork tasks and listening to student opinions sets an ideal student engagement environment which can have a profound impact on student learning.

From a policy perspective, policy makers should target resources at inefficient schools aimed at enhancing student learning through teacher development and, at the same time, providing financial and non-financial educational assistance to students and their families from a low socio-educational background.

This is the first large-scale primary school efficiency analysis to incorporate the Simar and Wilson (2007) approach to explaining the determinants of efficiency, including teaching environment from the perspective of students, teachers and other stakeholders.

The general objective of this paper is to investigate the mathematics achievement of middle grade students in Pakistan. Specifically: to determine whether mathematics achievement varies systematically across students and schools; to what extent the mathematics curriculum and frameworks are implemented in schools; to what extent gender and location account for differences in mathematics achievement (at item and test scores levels); to what extent student demographics, home background, and homework variables predict mathematics achievement; to what extent schools' physical and academic resources predict mathematics achievement; and to what extent student‐ and school‐level variables interact to predict achievement indirectly.

The approach was to undertake a quantitative survey of 14,440 students from 770 schools across the country. The analytic strategy included item‐level Rasch analysis, DIF analysis across gender and regional location, and MLM analysis to test various student‐ and school‐level models.

Rasch analysis indicated that students were able to pass low‐rigour items requiring simple mathematical skills. The DIF analysis indicated that items favouring female students in either content domain belonged to knowledge of concepts to recall basic facts, terminologies, numbers, and geometric properties. Items favouring male students in either domain belonged to the problem solving level. MLM analysis revealed that at the student level, gender, location, and some home background and homework variables contributed towards mathematics achievement. At the school level, availability of learning resources and better physical facilities were found to be associated with increase in achievement scores.

Only a few major variables with policy and research implications were tested to keep the interpretations clear and simple. The next stage of this study could examine the more complex pattern of relationships and interactions among relationships for subgroups.

The study has implications for a review of the gender gap in school enrolment, the national curriculum for mathematics, homework policy, the role of regional languages as a medium of instruction in schools, the provision of school resources, and learning aids in schools.

The paper shows that the estimated models were successful in explaining the variation in average achievement in terms of proportion of variance explained and significance of estimates of the effects.

This chapter explores the emotional struggles and professional dilemmas of teachers as they deal with the on going failure of their learners in a poorly resourced school serving a low socio-economic community in South Africa. The chapter illustrates the resilience of teachers who are torn between conflicting impulses: the desire for their learners to do well while simultaneously wanting learners’ failure to be acknowledged and the pressure to conform to curriculum demands while simultaneously wanting to teach and assess in ways that are more authentic to themselves and appropriate to the social context.

Using a South African district of education as a case study, the purpose of this paper is to explore how high-stake assessments informed by marketisation and managerialism have been embedded in the South African education system.

This papers draws on data that were collected through a mixed method approach in the secondary schools of the uMgungundlovu District, which is in Kwazulu-Natal province (KZN) in the eastern part of South Africa. This paper emerged from multiple sources of data, that is, from documents, interviews, questionnaires, and observation as well as secondary sources.

The paper demonstrates how the pincer movement of markets and managerialism have used high-stake testing as a mechanism of performativity. It illustrates how test scores are published in newspapers to provide consumers with information that is needed for full participation in the marketised education system.

The insights from this paper have profound implications for school managers and policy makers. While high-stake tests are logically consistent and theoretically defensible, overdependence on them portends the replacement of traditional values of schools by the market value of the education.

The study contributes profound insights into how the high-stake testing serves the purpose of social control and subjugation mechanisms for students, schools, and teachers by the state and the invisible arm of the markets. The problem with the use of high-stakes testing as performativity mechanisms is not just that they hinders learning and teaching, but it changes the work of schools and teachers who are at the chalkface of education system.

With growing concerns about an academic literacy crisis plaguing the education system in South Africa, tertiary institutions have to find ways to strengthen the academic literacy skills of underprepared students transitioning into higher education. This is more pressing for low socioeconomic status students who are linguistically marginalised and face historically poor graduation prospects. In response, this chapter offers a snapshot of two studies conducted in South Africa that sought to test the efficacy of a purposefully designed academic literacy intervention (Reading to Learn (RtL)). The intervention sought to address inequitable academic literacy skills development of linguistically marginalised students, who are also socioeconomically disadvantaged. Two small-scale, longitudinal studies were run in two separate educational contexts in South Africa – a senior secondary school context and a tertiary context with largely first-generation undergraduate students. Results of both studies showed the RtL intervention to be successful at raising the level of academic writing skills of the research participants. Furthermore, similar to other RtL studies conducted globally, the two studies found weaker-performing students made the greatest gains in their academic writing skills, showing evidence of a convergence effect – more equitable learning outcomes being exhibited in the English classroom.