Question NW2029 to the Minister of Basic Education

Reply:

As the Minister of Basic Education, I share growing concerns regarding learner-educator (LE) ratios and their potential impact on the quality of education. While it is often assumed that an increasing LE ratio leads to poorer learning outcomes, the evidence is not entirely clear. The Department of Basic Education (DBE) is committed to prioritising further research in this area to ensure that any solutions we implement are informed by reliable data.

What is clear, however, is that the LE ratio has worsened in recent years, from 27.5 in 2012 to 29.0 in 2023. This increase is largely due to the growing learner population, which has risen by approximately 292,000 in the past five years, coupled with a fiscal environment that does not easily result in increases in the basket of available educator posts. This trend has led to steadily increasing ratios across the provinces.

In responding to concerns about the potential link between larger class sizes and declining outcomes, it is important to note that class size trends can differ by grade. For instance, while we have seen a decline in the percentage of learners in oversized classes in Grades 1 to 3 between 2015 and 2023, this percentage in Grades 4 to 7 increased somewhat over the same period. Statistics and further analysis on the aforementioned are available in the DBE’s newly released Review of progress in the basic education sector to 2024: Analysis of key statistics (available on the website under ‘Resources’, then ‘Publications’).

A key area of concern has been the stagnation in our Grade 5 mathematics scores, as reflected in the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMMS) between 2015 and 2019. However, attributing this lack of progress solely to class sizes is speculative, and we must look at the broader context of class size trends across different grades and years to understand the full picture.

It is important to note that South Africa’s LE ratios are high by global standards, and it is a priority for us to reduce them, particularly in the early grades where individualised attention is most needed. This will require addressing several challenges, including protecting our basic education budgets in a fiscally constrained environment. Recent reports on budget cuts have highlighted how these cuts are impacting LE ratios, but we are also actively exploring supplementary solutions, such as addressing grade repetition and improving timetabling to optimise class sizes. More details in this regard can be found in the Action Plan to 2024.

In addition to the above, I have requested the Department of Basic Education to prioritise the review of the post provisioning norms to ensure that these are responsive to the existing realities and needs of our schooling system. These norms have not been reviewed in over 20 years and need to be aligned with our current priorities, including the urgent need to improve literacy and numeracy outcomes in the Foundation Phase.

Our priority remains to ensure that every learner receives a quality education, and we are committed to finding solutions that balance the realities of increasing learner numbers with the need for effective teaching and learning.