The aim of this article is to examine literacy and numeracy scores of learners who participated in the South African "Kha Ri Gude" Literacy Campaign. Analysing the learning outcomes of the 2011 cohort of a total of 485,941 participants, the authors seek to identify variations between the learners' achievements across the eleven official…

This paper will deal, firstly, with the South African context, that cries out for attention to responsible language assessment. The renewed interest in language testing in South Africa is well illustrated in assessments of language ability for educational purposes generally, and more specifically in the assessment of academic literacy. Secondly,…

In this article, preProgress in Reading Literacy Study (prePIRLS) 2011 data is used to compare the performance of different language of instruction groupings (English, Afrikaans and African languages) in primary schools on the more complex, higher-order reading comprehension items tested in a large-scale international test. PrePIRLS 2011…

Despite critical literacy being identified as a desired outcome of South Africa's new curriculum statement, in reality this does not seem to be occurring (DoE 2002, pp. 5, 11). Critical literacy is one way in which spaces of contestation and resistance can be opened up. In order to do so it is necessary to provide students with basic literacy…

Multilayered, this book presents as a narrative, a first-person scholarly (but not academic) account of the political and educational conflicts surrounding the question of the development of language and thought. It follows a group of South African graduate students, black and white, including teachers who live in Soweto, as they struggle to…