[LATEST ON ECD] An announcement from Dep. Basic Education regarding the Early Childhood Development subsidies.

As we mark International Mother Language Day, it is widely acknowledged in SA that strengthening mother tongue in African languages is hampered by the dearth of quality readers. An important skill children can learn in the Foundation Phase is the ability to read in mother tongue.

New Article! Fondazione Aurora has established the WikiAfrica Education Programme for university students in Africa under its Higher Education Initiative. This project enables university students in Africa to create content about the continent on Wikipedia in African languages.

The initiative has already yielded 200 articles in at least nine local languages, including Igbo, Kinyarwanda, Kiswahili, isiZulu, Dagbani, Lologooli, Yoruba, and Sepedi, generating more than 150,000 views on the website!

The PIRLS 2021 results were released last week & most countries declined including South Africa. I've written an Op-Ed on this - especially how we should think about the decline amongst African languages: dailymaverick.co.za/article/2023-0…

Intervening in Home Language benefits both Home Language & English but intervening in English hurts Home Language. Read our working paper ⁦Center for Global Development⁩ & a blog with ⁦Stephen Taylor⁩ ⁦Jacobus Cilliers⁩ Brahm Fleisch cgdev.org/blog/what-effe…

There’s no research to support the claims that 1️⃣ 30% of South African girls miss school during their period or that 2️⃣ 3.7 million schoolgirls in South Africa can't afford sanitary pads. africacheck.info/menstruation_SA

📣Youth Impact is hiring for a bunch of exciting roles, including a program manager for a partnership with the Department of Basic Education in South Africa to pilot, test, and scaled evidence-based education programs. Please circulate and apply! youth-impact.org/join-us-1

🌟💚 Every child deserves a trusted place to be heard and supported! 🤝 Our Help Line is available 24/7, 7 days a week. Dial 116 to talk to us. 📲 Now, you can also reach us on Whatsapp! Just send a "Hi" to 063 986 9188, and we'll call you back. #ChildrensRights #SupportForAll

external review of #ulwazilwethu project: external review of 1430 early grade readers in all 9 African. Led by Dr Joyce West University of Pretoria Breaking new ground: emerging scholarship on ‘science of reading in African languages’ Zenex Foundation Brahm Fleisch Mary Metcalfe Nic Spaull

#ulwazilwethu Readers developed by Molteno, Room to Read, Nelson Mandela Institute; SAIDE University of Pretoria Review recommendations important for future development of African language readers Nal'ibali Book Dash Funda Wande National Education Collaboration Trust Dep. Basic Education

#ulwazilwethu 1430 readers in all 9 African languages with teacher materials: a vital contribution to implementing Dep. Basic Education turnaround reading strategy - especially focus on mother tongue education Zenex Foundation Stephen Taylor Mary Metcalfe

Mpumi Moholwane Mpumi Mohohlwane presenting on language transfer using EGRS 1, targeting home language (HL) and EGRS 2, targeting English. Take home? When targeting home language it improved BOTH HL and English. When targeting English it ONLY improved English, and possibly hurt HL

Baba kaNkosana Nic Spaull Mpumi Mohohlwane This write-up by Mpumi Mohohlwane and Jacobus Cilliers might help: cgdev.org/blog/what-effe…

Join us tomorrow as we launch this important work!

This is a great milestone in South Africa. The DBE have created reading benchmarks that government can use to track system wide change & teachers can use to track progress, target instruction

📣 For those with a PhD or on the job market, just a few days left (Nov 20) to apply to an exciting role as postdoc / Research Scientist with us at the What Works Hub for Global Education Blavatnik School of Government University of Oxford! cc FCDO Research Gates Foundation bsg.ox.ac.uk/workforus

Reading Skills Transfer Best from Home Language to a Second Language: Policy Lessons from Two Field Experiments in South Africa Our paper with JREE is out Stephen Taylor Brahm_Fleisch Jacobus Cilliers You can access it here : tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.10…

Learning effects don't always fade out! New results 4 years after the end of a program from Jonathan Stern Matthew Jukes Jacobus Cilliers Brahm_Fleisch Stephen Taylor and Mpumi Mohohlwane cgdev.org/blog/long-term…

Really looking forward to this conversation. Check it out & consider submitting a paper