Investing in after school programmes vital to save kids from Covid backlogs

Learning backlogs caused by school closures and reduced in-class time during Covid-19 lockdowns have worsened an already dire situation facing schools that cater for children from poverty-stricken communities.

This is according to The Learning Trust (TLT), an education-focused NGO that has funded and supported over 150 educational non-profits and schools in various provinces.

In its newly launched report, entitled “After School Programmes in SA: The Investment Case”, TLT says it is unlikely — with the current approach to education — that the Covid-induced backlog can be eliminated. 

According to the report, in the poorest schools — known as quintile one to three schools — 44% of all pupils drop out before they reach their matric year.

Pupils also take an average of three years longer to matriculate (15 years) than their best-resourced counterparts (12 years), and only 14% of those who achieve matric do well enough to enter university.

The report was outlined during a virtual panel discussion on Wednesday which included Nic Spaull of Research on Socioeconomic Policy Group (RESEP) at Stellenbosch University, Merle Mansfield, director of Zero Dropout Campaign, and Hope Chidawanyika, CEO of @IkamvaYouth.

Spaull said school closures as a result of the pandemic are going “to increase repetition and dropout.

“The learning losses are ongoing because children are attending school every second day rather than every day.

“We are seeing in the interventions that we have, for example in the Eastern Cape, that when we went back to test children in 2021 — these were the same children we tested in 2019 but couldn’t test in 2020 — we couldn’t find 15% of them. This is in the foundation phase.”

“In terms of learning losses we have seen, as a result of Covid-19, that children in 2020 learnt between 50 to 75% less than children in 2019,” he said.

TLT is making a case for government investment in more after school programmes to help children from poor communities better navigate their way through and complete their schooling.

According to the report, after school programmes fill the gaps between “the kinds of support middle and working class children receive, by providing targeted support to schools, teachers, caregivers and pupils.

In terms of learning losses we have seen as a result of Covid-19 that children in 2020 have learnt between 50 to 70% less than children in 2019.

—  Nic Spaull,researcher

“After school programmes responded quickly and innovatively to school closures in 2020, and really demonstrated their value during this turbulent time.

“After school programmes became all-day, as they pivoted quickly and effectively to reach pupils at home.

“Most research on the after school programme sector has been conducted in the US, where they have been found to play a significant role in improving outcomes for under-resourced pupils, including reduced school absenteeism and dropout, increased interest in schools and improved academic results,” the report stated.

The Zero Dropout Campaign found, in a report commissioned from RESEP in 2020, that repetition in quintile one to three schools was particularly high, and that only about 39% of children in these schools were at the right age for their grade.

“This means that about 60% of children were not in the right grade for their ages and so had already repeated at least once,” said Mansfield.

“We also found that repetition for boys was higher than girls and that it is especially high in grades one, four, 10 and 11. Why is this important?

“It’s important because when a pupil is over-age for his or her grade or repeating, it is a proxy indicator for dropout out of the school space.

“Often schools that are no-fee or low-fee don’t have the resources to do the kind of work required when a pupil is repeating a grade to help them catch up, support them and to remediate the concepts they haven’t grasped yet.

“This is an opportunity for the after school programmes to come in and give that support to these schools.”

Mansfield said poorer schools had been greatly impacted by the pandemic.

“They have already been dealing with challenges of overcrowded classrooms, lack of human resources and under-resourced spaces to be able to implement the necessary things we need for social distancing and rotational learning.

“School dropout is preceded by a long process of disengagement that happens before the child eventually drops out.

“Policies and mechanisms to support them are very important.

“A striking fact that came out of a report we had done in 2019 showed that the cost of repetition to the fiscus is about R20bn a year.

“So we can see the impact of not investing in the right aspects to get children through the system and the cost of what it is to our country,” she said.

TLT believes that among the solutions is an “immediate strategy to invest in and expand after school programmes, “which have already proven they can measurably improve pupil success in quintile one to three schools and help to reduce the unacceptably high dropout rate”.

According to TLT, after school programmes have operated for over two decades in townships and poorer communities and “occupy a pivotal niche in the education ecosystem by offering tutoring and homework support, skills-building, sports, ICT learning and arts and culture”.

Covid-19 and lockdowns really brought to light the importance of at-home and in-community learning.

—  Joy Olivier, report author

Its report shows that while the after school programme sector is currently too small to realistically assist the education department to eliminate the huge learning backlog, it is well-positioned to make a measurable improvement, even in the short term.

“Covid-19 and lockdowns really brought to light the importance of at-home and in-community learning, and the education community is now increasingly looking beyond the classroom to the broader education ecosystem — including community members and caregivers,” said Joy Olivier, the author of the report.

“The focus to date has largely been on the cost-per-learner in after school programme participation, which requires significant investment to scale.”

The report says that among the outcomes that after school programmes can improve — evidenced by case studies of two such programmes — is that they produce matric results that are consistently above national averages, particularly in critical subjects such as maths and science.

They also reduce the need to repeat grades and decrease the number of pupils who opt to drop out of school.

“For example, as 85% of the pupils enrolled in the IkamvaYouth after school programme pass matric, the number of years of schooling required per grade 12 learning outcome is significantly decreased. The number of years of schooling required per bachelor-level matric pass drops from 104 to 31. Hence, even when factoring in the ASP participation cost, the price tag per bachelor pass drops from a national average of R2m per learner to R770,000,” said Olivier.

Sibongile Khumalo, TLT’s executive director, said: “The report presents a viable catch-up intervention at scale. In addition to adding to the after school programme sector’s evidence base, we make the case for more funding to be released in support of the community-based interventionists who deliver these programmes. By investing in extended learning, it’s possible to significantly turn the tide on the deeper Covid-induced learning deficits.”