2030 Reading Panel Findings Reinforce National Urgency to Transform Early-Grade Reading

Johannesburg, 25 February 2025 – Just weeks after President Cyril Ramaphosa’s State of the Nation Address (SONA), where he reaffirmed the government’s commitment to “ensuring that every child can read for meaning in the foundation phase,” a new report has been released by the 2030 Reading Panel.

The 2025 report, released today in Johannesburg, provides critical insights into the country’s progress in transforming early-grade reading. The Minister of Education, Siviwe Gwarube, recently described this vital element of education reform as critical to protecting “South Africa’s greatest asset, our young people.”

Key Findings

(1) 80% of Grade 3 learners cannot read for meaning in any language as measured by the South African systemic assessment. The reports from the South African Systemic Evaluation (SASE) (2022) and the Southern and Eastern Africa Consortium for Monitoring Educational Quality (SEACMEQ V) (2021) released in 2024 support the findings of the 2021 Progress in International Reading Literacy Study (PIRLS) that 81% of Grade 4 learners cannot read for meaning in any language. With SASE revealing that only 20% of grade 3 learners perform at grade level or above in their home language (HL) and nearly 70% of Grade 6 learners have not achieved grade-level reading skills in the language of learning and teaching – Afrikaans or English.

(2) SEACMEQ V reports that there has been a dramatic increase in the proportion of grade 6 teachers performing at the highest reading competencies from 64% in 2013 to 94% in 2021. Concerningly, in Maths, only 32% of teachers perform at the highest competency level, with as little as 14% in one province. These results, however, require further investigation as the large increases in teacher reading competencies and large declines in Maths in the same provinces from the same teachers are unexpected and unexplained.

(3) The combination of the Western Cape Education Department’s (WCED) R1.2 billion Back-on-Track (BoT) programme and expected system-level post-Covid bounce back, has led to improvements in Grade 4 language of up to 195 schooling days (almost a full year) after just five Saturday sessions, with learners attending up to nine sessions. The largest effect sizes were recorded in Grade 7 maths: up to 225 days of learning.

(4) None of the cohorts writing the Western Cape’s grade 3, 6 and 9 systemic assessment in 2023, are performing at pre-Covid Levels, with isiXhosa learners in 2023 more than a year behind their 2021 counterparts. Raising the alarm of what will become of all the other Covid learners in the system who have never experienced any systemic remediation programme.

(5) Unfunded mandates like grade R and ECD are estimated to require R18 billion (2.5 x the estimated 2026/7 budget allocation) and five times the current subsidy respectively. These initiatives are undoubtedly important, but without a clear roadmap of how they will be prioritised, funded and capacitated, they risk overwhelming an already strained education system that lacks a plan and budget to tackle existing challenges such as poor learning outcomes.

(6) The system is producing twice the required secondary school teachers, while producing only half the required number of foundation phase teachers. Additionally, some African languages are severely underrepresented, with as few as 20% of the necessary Language of Learning and Teaching (LOLT)-specific teachers being produced.

(7) Four provinces (Western Cape, Gauteng, the Free State and the Eastern Cape) are at different stages of implementing assessments at primary schools. These provincial assessments will provide a good mix of sample-based and in some cases, universal assessments, that will make it possible to measure system level progress at a national level and to make more informed decisions about the allocation of resources and support at a school level measure learner outcomes and allocate resources accordingly.

(8) A recent study highlights the importance of HL reading proficiency by the end of Grade 3 as a predictor of Grade 4 repetition and higher English First Additional Language (EFAL) outcomes. Grade 1 repetition, failing Grade 1 maths, and condonation at the end of Grade 3 were also found to be predictive of Grade 4 repetition. These findings indicate that repetition policies, especially in the foundation phase, must be carefully considered to ensure they are delivering the intended benefits of improved learning outcomes.

2030 Reading Panel recommendations:

1. Measuring what matters: implementing a universal standardized assessment of reading at the primary school level. While the SASE is a commendable improvement on the part of the DBE, it is a sample based assessment and cannot be used to provide school or district level insights.
2. Moving from slogans to budgets: allocating meaningful budgets to reading resources and reading interventions not only talking about them
3. Providing a minimum set of reading resources to all Foundation Phase classrooms (Grade R-3) as a matter of urgency.
4. A university audit of pre-service teacher education programmes that leads to improved quality of BEd programmes. An audit is currently underway by the CHE, but a critical issue in raising quality will be paying close attention to the curriculum aspects of the BEd.

Key Note Speaker

The keynote speaker at the event is Dr. Jaime Saavedra, Regional Director of Human Development for Latin America and the Caribbean at the World Bank. He is also the former Peruvian Minister of Education. He has reflected on the moment Peru confronted its education crisis head on:

“The PISA results came out three weeks after I started, so those results were a baseline for us. Peru was last. Last of the 65 countries of PISA. Not the bottom 10 percent. Last. And that was a shock”, he says.

“We could have decided to play the results down to say, ‘But Peru has improved since 2009’ (which it had), or ‘But we are better than many countries that didn’t even take PISA’, or ‘It is an OECD [Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development] examination that is alien to our culture and priorities’. But we didn’t go down that route. Instead, we decided to own the problem, to use the results to say, ‘Look, we’re not in trouble. We’re in deep trouble.”, he said.

New Panellists to Strengthen National Advocacy.

To bolster its efforts in literacy reform and systemic change, the 2030 Reading Panel welcomes four new distinguished experts:

• Prof Veronica McKay – A literacy development leader who spearheaded the Kha Ri Gude Literacy Campaign and initiated the DBE Rainbow Workbook project.
• Dr Faranaaz Veriava – A legal expert in education rights and former head of the Education Programme at SECTION 27, known for her work in landmark education justice cases.
• Ms Kentse Radebe – A social innovation specialist and Deputy CEO of the DG Murray Trust, advancing impactful education and youth development strategies.
• Prof Mary Metcalfe – A policy expert and former Gauteng MEC for Education, bringing extensive experience in systemic education reforms.

These new appointments bring a wealth of expertise and innovative thinking to the 2030 Reading Panel.

“Their leadership will bolster our advocacy efforts and help drive meaningful, evidence-based interventions to ensure all 10-year-olds can read for meaning by 2030,” said Dr. Mlambo-Ngcuka.

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Author: Dees Harilal from JT Communication Solutions on behalf of 2030 Reading Panel.

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