CENTRE FOR
SOCIAL SCIENCE RESEARCH
Social Surveys Unit
The Learning for Living Project,
2000 – 2004: A book-based approach
to the learning of language in South
African primary schools
Eric Schollar
CSSR Working Paper No. 233
November 2008
,Eric Schollar is the director of Eric Schollar and Associates, an independent research agency, and a
visiting research fellow in the CSSR at the University of Cape Town.
,The Learning for Living Project 2000 –
2004: A book-based approach to the
learning of language in South African
primary schools
Abstract
The Learning for Living Project was implemented over five years in 957 primary
schools in all nine provinces of South Africa. The intervention embodied a book-
based approach to the learning of English as a second language and was based
upon a modified book flood model utilizing the supply of materials supported by
in-service training as well as extensive classroom monitoring. A total of 13 164
teachers were supplied with a total of 4 002 103 individual books of different
types – a mean of 304 per teacher. In addition, each teacher received a mean of
9.6 INSET courses and 6.9 monitoring visits. The project cost R153 million for a
total of 875 000 learners yielding a per capita cost of R175 per learner over the
whole five year project, including project staff salaries and administration. The
project was externally evaluated through the use of a quasi experimental design
that longitudinally tracked true cohorts of randomly selected learners in project
and control groups drawn from a sample of 90 schools. The resulting data has a
precision of just over 1% at a confidence level of 95% - mean scores of the
project and control groups were virtually equivalent at baseline (-0.5%
difference in relation to the project mean). All of the components of the sample
measured significant impacts in the project group over the controls in literacy –
Cohort One +6.9%, Cohort Two +3.4%, Grade Five +7.6% and Grade Seven
+7.7%. There is a 100% certainty that these impacts were achieved as a result
of the book- based approach to the learning of English as a second language
applied by the Learning for Living Project. That similar impacts in mathematics
were not obtained suggests that poor inputs and outcomes in mathematics exist
independently of the language in which it is learned.
, Background to the Project
The Learning for Living Project (LFL) was designed and operated over a five
year period between 2000 and 2004 by the READ Educational Trust in all nine
provinces. In total, 957 primary schools participated in the LFL with 13 164
teachers and an estimated 875 000 learners. The project received R153 million
in funding from the Business Trust (BT) and was implemented with the support
and cooperation of the National and Provincial Departments of Education
(DoE).
The fundamental motivation for the project was the need to improve the quality
of the outcomes of South African schooling. While much had been achieved
since the watershed year of 1994 in terms of increased access to schooling, the
establishment of more equitable provisioning norms for schools and the
introduction of a new curriculum in 1998, much remained to be done in terms of
improving the quality of the outcomes of the education system.
In conceptualizing the intervention programme READ, the Business Trust and
the Department of Education acknowledged that the areas of literacy and
language were critical to achieving this goal in a multilingual country in which
the great majority of School Governing Bodies and parents have opted for the
use of a second language, almost always English, as the Language of Learning
and Teaching (LOLT) in Intermediate Phase (Grades 4 to 6) and beyond.
Furthermore, the adoption of a national language policy in which the mother
tongue was to be used as the LOLT in Foundation Phase (Grades 1 to 3)
imposed on the overriding need for learners to become sufficiently proficient in
English by Grade 4 to make any form of education in this language feasible. It is
clearly very difficult for young learners to switch from mother tongue and to
learn a second language at the same time as they are expected to learn all the
other subjects in this language. That all of the materials provided to schools for
these other subjects are in English underscores the point. On this note, the
adoption of the new Outcomes Based Education curriculum in 1998 created
significant problems in that the materials with which schools were supplied prior
to that year were not written in terms of the new curriculum. As a consequence,
schools were seriously undersupplied with materials appropriate for the new
curriculum and the provision of a great number of learning materials by the LFL
was another important factor in its adoption.
2
SOCIAL SCIENCE RESEARCH
Social Surveys Unit
The Learning for Living Project,
2000 – 2004: A book-based approach
to the learning of language in South
African primary schools
Eric Schollar
CSSR Working Paper No. 233
November 2008
,Eric Schollar is the director of Eric Schollar and Associates, an independent research agency, and a
visiting research fellow in the CSSR at the University of Cape Town.
,The Learning for Living Project 2000 –
2004: A book-based approach to the
learning of language in South African
primary schools
Abstract
The Learning for Living Project was implemented over five years in 957 primary
schools in all nine provinces of South Africa. The intervention embodied a book-
based approach to the learning of English as a second language and was based
upon a modified book flood model utilizing the supply of materials supported by
in-service training as well as extensive classroom monitoring. A total of 13 164
teachers were supplied with a total of 4 002 103 individual books of different
types – a mean of 304 per teacher. In addition, each teacher received a mean of
9.6 INSET courses and 6.9 monitoring visits. The project cost R153 million for a
total of 875 000 learners yielding a per capita cost of R175 per learner over the
whole five year project, including project staff salaries and administration. The
project was externally evaluated through the use of a quasi experimental design
that longitudinally tracked true cohorts of randomly selected learners in project
and control groups drawn from a sample of 90 schools. The resulting data has a
precision of just over 1% at a confidence level of 95% - mean scores of the
project and control groups were virtually equivalent at baseline (-0.5%
difference in relation to the project mean). All of the components of the sample
measured significant impacts in the project group over the controls in literacy –
Cohort One +6.9%, Cohort Two +3.4%, Grade Five +7.6% and Grade Seven
+7.7%. There is a 100% certainty that these impacts were achieved as a result
of the book- based approach to the learning of English as a second language
applied by the Learning for Living Project. That similar impacts in mathematics
were not obtained suggests that poor inputs and outcomes in mathematics exist
independently of the language in which it is learned.
, Background to the Project
The Learning for Living Project (LFL) was designed and operated over a five
year period between 2000 and 2004 by the READ Educational Trust in all nine
provinces. In total, 957 primary schools participated in the LFL with 13 164
teachers and an estimated 875 000 learners. The project received R153 million
in funding from the Business Trust (BT) and was implemented with the support
and cooperation of the National and Provincial Departments of Education
(DoE).
The fundamental motivation for the project was the need to improve the quality
of the outcomes of South African schooling. While much had been achieved
since the watershed year of 1994 in terms of increased access to schooling, the
establishment of more equitable provisioning norms for schools and the
introduction of a new curriculum in 1998, much remained to be done in terms of
improving the quality of the outcomes of the education system.
In conceptualizing the intervention programme READ, the Business Trust and
the Department of Education acknowledged that the areas of literacy and
language were critical to achieving this goal in a multilingual country in which
the great majority of School Governing Bodies and parents have opted for the
use of a second language, almost always English, as the Language of Learning
and Teaching (LOLT) in Intermediate Phase (Grades 4 to 6) and beyond.
Furthermore, the adoption of a national language policy in which the mother
tongue was to be used as the LOLT in Foundation Phase (Grades 1 to 3)
imposed on the overriding need for learners to become sufficiently proficient in
English by Grade 4 to make any form of education in this language feasible. It is
clearly very difficult for young learners to switch from mother tongue and to
learn a second language at the same time as they are expected to learn all the
other subjects in this language. That all of the materials provided to schools for
these other subjects are in English underscores the point. On this note, the
adoption of the new Outcomes Based Education curriculum in 1998 created
significant problems in that the materials with which schools were supplied prior
to that year were not written in terms of the new curriculum. As a consequence,
schools were seriously undersupplied with materials appropriate for the new
curriculum and the provision of a great number of learning materials by the LFL
was another important factor in its adoption.
2
