,ENG2601 Assignment 4 OCTOBER NOVEMBER
PORTFOLIO (COMPLETE ANSWERS) 2024 - DUE 9
October 2024; 100% TRUSTED Complete, trusted
solutions and explanations.
Read Text A and answer the questions that follows. South
Africa’s massive reading problem Luke Fraser 16 May 2023
Grade 4 learners in South Africa have the worst reading ability
in the world, with 81% incapable of reading for meaning. This is
according to the 2021 Progress in International Reading Literacy
Study (PIRLS 2021), which tested 12,426 learners across the
country and compared them to students at a similar age level
across 42 other nations. South Africa’s mean achievement score
was 288 in the study, far below the 500 international average.
Egypt was the second worst country in the study, but its score
of 378 was well ahead of South Africa. A major concern for
South Africa is that its achievement score has dropped
significantly from the PIRLS 2016 study, where South Africa
reported that 78% of children in Grade 4 could not read for
meaning in any language. However, researchers noted that 21
of the 32 countries with trend data noticed a drop, with the
Covid-19 pandemic having a major effect on teaching hours
globally. In the 2021 study, Singapore (587), Hong Kong (573),
the Russian Federation (567), England (588), and Finland (549)
had the highest overall scores: The results in South Africa varied
heavily across languages. Learners who were tested in Afrikaans
and English scored significantly higher than those who were
tested in African languages. Those tested in Afrikaans (387) and
, English (382) scored well above the average, while nine African
languages scored below the mean, with Setswana (211) being
the worst-performing language. Moreover, the Western Cape
(363), Gauteng (320) and Kwa-Zulu Natal (297) outperformed
the 288 mean, with more remote provinces Limpopo (244) and
North-West (232) significantly lower. The biggest area of
concern is that 81% of learners in the study were below the
study’s low international benchmark, meaning that 81% of
students cannot read for meaning. Moreover, only 11% of
learners reached the low international benchmark, while 94%
of students internationally could reach the low international
benchmark. For South Africa, only 2% of readers could reach a
high benchmark, while 1% reached the advanced benchmark.
State of education The Centre for Development and Enterprise
(CDE) previously said that South Africa has one of the worst-
performing education systems in the world. “The President
speaks of a ‘silent revolution’, while the minister talks of a
‘system on the rise’. The truth is that we face a silent crisis in
our schools: South Africa has one of the worst performing
education systems in the world,” said CDE’S Executive Director
Ann Bernstein. The CDE said that South Africa spends roughly
13% of government revenue on education, which should
improve competitive learning levels, reduce learning inequality,
and train a large workforce. However, Professor Lant Pritchett
said that South Africa is the biggest learning underperformer
relative to GDP per capita among low and middle-income
countries. CONFIDENTIAL Despite spending equivalent levels as
