Publications in primary school systems
Peer-reviewed publications are available from the publications sites provided.
Cailin Perrie and Christa Searle
The state and quality of the South African education system is an increasing concern. Even more than two decades after the Apartheid era, the consequence of the segregation and discrimination is evident in the country's education system. In order to address this matter, an agent-based simulation model with the ability to model the academic progression of grade one to four learners from various socio-economic backgrounds, based on existing data, is proposed. The model aims to effectively simulate the academic progression of learners over a four-year period, as well as assisting intervention planning in identifying the effect that certain social or socio-economic intervention strategies may have on the academic progression of learners in the South African education system. The agent-based model allows for a graphical output visualizing the academic progression of agents and the effects that the activation of certain intervention strategies have on this progression.
Lieschen Venter and Theresa Viljoen
In this paper the impact of various factors on teacher effectiveness is considered in the South African context. The Teacher Effectiveness Model is constructed to answer the research question whether it is the low quantity of teachers or predominantly their low quality that contributes to the basic education crisis of Quintile 1 to 3 schools in the Western Cape, South Africa. The model illustrates the impact of improving the quantity and quality of teachers within the province. This research question is answered when the system exhibits an increase of 13% in the success measure when the quantity is improved and an increase of 10% in the success measure when quality is improved. Improvement in both factors, however, gives the best result with a 17% increase in the success measure.
Lieschen Venter and Marietjie Vosloo
In this paper, the impact of school leadership on the learners' academic performance is considered in the South African context. School leadership is a systemic concept that cannot be analysed out of its context and thus we develop a simulation model to investigate the effect of various school leadership and management intervention programs on the principals themselves, and on the schools which they lead. The model is initiated with a mix of narrative and qualitative data. Interventions on the basis of what-if scenarios are modelled to illustrate the systemic nature of the education environment. The model can also assist school leaders to visualise the nonlinearity, time dependence and interdependence of the impact of their decisions. We show that interventions have to be made early and consistently to improve and maintain the system and that there is no immediate silver bullet solution.
Working papers in primary school systems
The working papers, research projects, theses and dissertations listed are being prepared for publication.
Statistical analysis for variate relationships in the South African public primary school system
2024, work in progress
This study aims to enhance the understanding of the factors influencing learner progression within the South African public primary school system, focusing on non-school-related influences that impact academic performance and progression from Grade 1 to Grade 7. Building on Venter's Primary School Model (PSM) developed for Western Cape primary schools, this research seeks to increase confidence in the causal mapping of factors that affect learners' educational outcomes. Through statistical analysis of national survey data, the study identifies key socio-economic and community factors that must be included in a valid causal model and examines the causal relationships between these factors. By investigating the direction and magnitude of these causal links, this research addresses the critical question of how external factors contribute to the high learner attrition and overall dysfunction in South Africa's basic education system. The findings will inform interventions aimed at improving learner success, emphasizing the importance of addressing broader socio-economic and community conditions to secure equitable educational outcomes.
The impact of pandemic control on the Primary School Model
2022, work in progress
Education systems are by nature complex, interdependent and policy-laden systems, the design of which is by no means an intuitive endeavour. System dynamics is a highly recommended technique with which to study the internal dynamics of education systems.
The South African education system was already in crisis before the regulations to control the Covid-19 pandemic were introduced. South Africa was already on average the worst education system of all low income countries and performed worse than many lower income countries in Africa. The pandemic further damaged the system by governments having to close schools for months on end, requiring teaching at home in a population with barely any digital resources, and the challenge now is to get learners outside the system safely back into the classroom.
​
The Primary School Model (PSM) uses system dynamics modelling to simulate the progress of learners in the public primary school system from Gr 1 to Gr 7. The model now must be expanded to include the impact of pandemic control. The existing input data must be refreshed to reflect the current reality so that the future of basic education in South Africa can be analyzed with regard to primary school learners.
Building a dataset for the Primary School Model
2020
Education systems are by nature complex, interdependent and policy-laden systems, the design of which is by no means an intuitive endeavour. System dynamics is a highly recommended technique with which to study the internal dynamics of education systems. The South African education system is in crisis. On average, South Africa has the worst education system of all middle-income countries and perform worse than many lower-income African countries. The Primary School Model uses system dynamics modelling to simulate the progression of learners in the primary public school system from Grade 1 to Grade 7. There exists a large number of datasets describing these learners, but the datasets are never based on the same sample and often describe very different characteristics. The ideal would be a single, large dataset containing all the necessary characteristics. This dataset can be constructed if care is taken to maintain correlation and causation relationships by using formal statistical techniques.
