Low Quality Education as a Poverty Trap

Berg, Servaas van der; Burger, C.P.J.; Burger, Rulof; Vos, Mia de; Rand, Gideon du; Gustafsson, Martin; Moses, Eldridge; Shepherd, Debra; Spaull, Nicholas; Taylor, Stephen; Broekhuizen, Hendrik van; Fintel, Dieter von

doi:10.2139/ssrn.2973766

Cited by 64 publications

(54 citation statements)

References 7 publications

(5 reference statements)

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“…363 for the former group as compared to 262 for the other group, emphasising the link between disadvantage and poor performance. This correlation is confirmed by Van der Berg et al, (2011) 2008: 8-10). In spite of the apparent commitment of DBE to libraries, the state of school libraries in South Africa, and therefore the provision of suitable reading material, is a source of great concern to the LIS sector.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 57%

Availability of books as a factor in reading, teaching and learning behaviour in twenty disadvantaged primary schools in South Africa

Nassimbeni

Desmond

2011

South African Journal of Libraries and Information Science

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 57%

Availability of books as a factor in reading, teaching and learning behaviour in twenty disadvantaged primary schools in South Africa

Nassimbeni

Desmond

2011

South African Journal of Libraries and Information Science

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“…Studies have shown that South Africa's quality of education lags far behind that of international peers and many of their African neighbours ( Van der Berg, et al, 2011). Social conversion factors could also play a role.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Capability Threshold: Re-Examining the Definition of the Middle Class in an Unequal Developing Country

2017

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Standard-Nutzungsbedingungen:Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden.Sie dürfen die Dokumente nicht für öffentliche oder kommerzielle Zwecke vervielfältigen, öffentlich ausstellen, öffentlich zugänglich machen, vertreiben oder anderweitig nutzen.Sofern die Verfasser die Dokumente unter Open-Content-Lizenzen (insbesondere CC-Lizenzen) zur Verfügung gestellt haben sollten, gelten abweichend von diesen Nutzungsbedingungen die in der dort genannten Lizenz gewährten Nutzungsrechte. In a polarised and highly unequal country such as South Africa, it is unlikely that a definition of the middle class that is based on an income threshold will adequately capture the political and social meanings of being middle class. We therefore propose a multi-dimensional definition, rooted in the ideas of empowerment and capability, and find that the 'empowered middle class' has expanded significantly since 1993 also across vulnerable subgroups such as blacks, female-headed households and rural inhabitants. It also is much larger than when measured in terms of income. Differing trends between the middle class defined based on income and based on capabilities is attributed to improved capabilities have not been rewarded with a proportional increases in access to the labour market. It is disconcerting that links to the labour market improved only slightly and this is attributed to sluggish labour market growth and low quality of education. We find that the middle class tend to have lower expectations around social mobility than the vulnerable. It is concerning that vulnerable individuals harbour unrealistically high expectations of the social mobility of the households and do not understand the determinants of social mobility and labour market prospectspossibly due to a mixture of heightened expectations following the political transition, but also the continued disconnection and marginalisation of vulnerable subpopulations from the mainstream economy. Terms of use: Documents in D I S C U S S I O N P A P E R S E R I E SJEL Classification: I32, I38, N97, D31

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“…Recent work has highlighted the poor state of education in South Africa, which is characterized by under-performing schools and children with extremely low skill levels (Reddy 2006;Fleisch 2008;Fleisch and Schindler 2008;Spaull 2011;Van der Berg et al 2011). Simultaneously, the schooling system is also known for the highly variable resource levels enjoyed by different schools within the public sector and the enormous variations in school performance that tend to accompany this.…”

Section: School Choice and Learner Mobility In South Africamentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Under Apartheid's Bantu Education Act (1953), children's educational opportunities, along with the resources devoted to these, were determined entirely by their racial categorization (Motala 1995;Fedderke, de Kadt, and Luiz 2000;Motala, Dieltiens, and Sayed 2009). While this policy is now a thing of the past, it has left behind a persistent set of geographically defined inequalities in educational infrastructure and resources, with well-performing schools typically located in historically white 1 areas 2 Ladd 2004, 2005;Woolman and Fleisch 2006;Spaull 2011;Van der Berg et al 2011).…”

Section: School Choice and Learner Mobility In South Africamentioning

confidence: 99%

Children's daily travel to school in Johannesburg-Soweto, South Africa: geography and school choice in the Birth to Twenty cohort study

Kadt

Norris

Fleisch

et al. 2013

Children's Geographies

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This paper has two aims: to explore approaches to the measurement of children's daily travel to school in a context of limited geospatial data availability and to provide data regarding school choice and distance travelled to school in Soweto-Johannesburg, South Africa. The paper makes use of data from the Birth to Twenty cohort study (n ¼ 1428) to explore three different approaches to estimating school choice and travel to school. First, straight-line distance between home and school is calculated. Second, census geography is used to determine whether a child's home and school fall in the same area. Third, distance data are used to determine whether a child attends the nearest school. Each of these approaches highlights a different aspect of mobility, and all provide valuable data. Overall, primaryschool-aged children in Soweto-Johannesburg are shown to be travelling substantial distances to school on a daily basis. Over a third travel more than 3 km one way to school, 60% attend schools outside of the suburb in which they live, and only 18% attend their nearest school. These data provide evidence for high levels of school choice in Johannesburg-Soweto, and that families and children are making substantial investments in pursuit of high-quality educational opportunities. Additionally, these data suggest that two patterns of school choice are evident: one pattern involving travel of substantial distances and requiring a higher level of financial investment and a second pattern involving choice between more local schools, requiring less travel and a more limited financial investment.

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Low Quality Education as a Poverty Trap

Cited by 64 publications

References 7 publications

Availability of books as a factor in reading, teaching and learning behaviour in twenty disadvantaged primary schools in South Africa

Availability of books as a factor in reading, teaching and learning behaviour in twenty disadvantaged primary schools in South Africa

The Capability Threshold: Re-Examining the Definition of the Middle Class in an Unequal Developing Country

Children's daily travel to school in Johannesburg-Soweto, South Africa: geography and school choice in the Birth to Twenty cohort study

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