Category Archives: Links I liked…

Links:

• Extremely helpful list of research and travel funding for African academics.
• Great website for teaching statistics – Seeing Theory – an interactive ‘textbook’

Jobs:

• JPAL and Pratham are looking for a Managing Director of “Teaching at the Right Level” Teaching at the Right Level Africa is a new high-profile initiative jointly led by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s (MIT) Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL) and the Indian Education NGO Pratham. We currently seek a dynamic Managing Director (Nairobi/JHB) to drive a scale up of the Teaching at the Right Level (TaRL) learning approach to more than 3 million primary school children in Africa over the next five years. Core to this role is helping to build a collaborative, unified TaRL Africa team that works across multiple countries and partners to achieve our goal of supporting education systems throughout the continent.  Read more and apply here.
• The DBE are looking for a Director of “Educator Performance Management and Whole School Evaluation” (Pretoria)
• We have extended the deadline for the COO position at Funda Wande (Cape Town) to the 12th of April 2019 – if you know of anyone or think you fit the profile please apply!

Over the last while I’ve been swamped working on the Funda Wande: Reading for Meaning program (more on that soon) and haven’t managed to keep up with the ‘Links I liked‘ blog posts. I think these are a helpful way of keeping track of good articles/books/blogs/videos etc. and curating some of cool stuff on the internet so I want to get back into this. Most of my time these days is spent looking at early grade reading in African languages so most of the articles are linked to that…

• Fundamentally important new Working Paper (May 2018) by Prof Martin Gustafsson on “Understanding the sharp primary level enrolment increases beginning in 2011 in SA”  –> My favourite line in the conclusion “It would have been good to have this information earlier as planning and adjusting the schooling system takes time.”  Classic Martin!
• Great book on “Reading Fluency: Current Insights from Neurocognitive Research and Intervention Studies” (2016 edited volume by Springer) – we need much of this style of quantitative research on reading fluency in African languages.
• Looking through RTI’s recent list of publications I’m really impressed at how much they are doing both in implementation (they are USAID’s main implementation partner in education) and in research. Lots of universities like to say they are are about both ‘research’ and ‘impact’ – RTI is probably the most productive university-that-isn’t-a-university in the world. Here are three of their recent publications in the field of early literacy:  “What We Have Learned in the Past Decade: RTI’s Approach to Early Grade Literacy Instruction” (Bulat et al. 2017) – I love their 5 T’s!, “Effectiveness of teachers’ guides in the Global South: Scripting, learning outcomes, and classroom utilization” (Piper et al., 2018) – super important given the successes of EGRS in SA, “What works in early reading materials” (Robledo & Gove, 2019).
• I briefly jumped back into the language-in-education research to see if there were any updates and these three are really worth reading:
• “Implementing Mother Tongue Instruction in the Real World: Results from a Medium-Scale Randomized Controlled Trial in Kenya” (Piper et al 2015),
• “Examining the secondary effects of mother-tongue literacy instruction in Kenya: Impacts on student learning in English, Kiswahili, and mathematics“(Piper et al 2018) – a useful caution using additional findings to those of the 2015 paper, although I’m a little skeptical given how short the baseline-endline comparison was, and of course
• “Estimating the impact of language of instruction in South African primary schools: A fixed effects approach” (Taylor & Von Fintel, 2016).
• SciHub – (Note that for those who don’t have access to these journals via a university I am told that typing “sci hub” into Google and then going to SciHub and inserting the DOI number of the article will provide access to pretty much any academic article 😉
• “PASEC2014 Education System Performance in Francophone Sub-Saharan Africa: Competencies and Learning Factors in Primary Education. PASEC is like SACMEQ but for Francophone Africa. This is a really comprehensive report. Bravo to CONFEMEN and the research team who put it together.
• Brahm Fleisch’s new (2018) book “The Education Triple Cocktail, The System-wide instructional reform in South Africa” – I’ll be speaking about this with Brahm and Jonathan Jansen in Cape Town next week Thursday (7 March 2019 at 6pm) at Juta HQ in Claremont.
• The BuaLit Collective has written a paper titled “How are we failing our children? Reconceptualising language and literacy education” (Oct 2018). Irrespective of whether I agree or disagree with the perspectives put forward in the paper, it is still useful to have this written down to engage with. Science moves forward when we can engage in rigorous ways with what other researchers are doing.

I think I already posted the links below but it can’t hurt to do it again:

• Jeremy Seekings and Nicoli Nattrass’ 2006 book “Class, race and inequality in South Africa” is available online – it’s a great read!
•  JPAL Teaching at the Right Level (TARL) Conference – JHB – 26-27 Sept 2018. Interesting (and great) that JPAL Africa was one of five recipients of a huge new grant ($80-million in total) for Teaching at the Right Level.
• Some interesting papers from the 2018 AEDE conference in Barcelona: “Afraid to go to School?Estimating the Effect of Violence on Schooling Outcomes in Brazil” (Koppensteiner & Menezes, 2018)
• “Gender Bias in Standardized Tests: Evidence from a Centralized College Admissions System in Turkey  (Saygin, 2018)
• “Unequal uptake of higher education mobility in the UK: The importance of social segregation in universities and subject areas” (Schnepf, 2018)

If you’ve read any great articles in the last while feel free to post them in the comments!

These are some things I’ve been reading and listening to over the last while. Sharing is caring 🙂 Post yours in the comments below…

• “Bread and roses” – political slogan and poem – sung by The Radcliffe Pitches  (thanks Brett!). The phrase “Give us bread but give us roses too” resonated with me as the most succinct way of expressing that the fight for dignity is about more than meeting basic needs.
• Linked to the above poem, I really enjoyed Joel Modiri’s article “The Law’s Poverty” and the clash between an a-historical human-rights approach to the law and a historically-situated “justice” approach to the law.
• “To be or not to be” – Masha Gessen on choice, Jewishness, identity, emigration and America (thanks again Brett!)
• STARI – Excellent resources on reading in Middle School (Grade 6-8). The STARI project run by Catherine Snow –
• WordGen – More resources on developing vocabulary through a 72-week discussion program (Catherine Snow’s baby)
• Huapango – a Mexican folklore ballet showcasing the incredible cultural variety and richness of the Mexican peoples. Each part of the song was created with a one group in mind and the ballet showcases their traditional dances and outfits. I’ve been listening to this on repeat for about a month (Thanks Victor!)
• Jonathan Jansen’s address to the Stanford Senate: “The case for the Academic Senate” – I include an excerpt from that address below:

“What does this say about the role of the Senate? Quite simply, the question of knowledge is at its root a question of agenda-setting in any Senate. This points to leadership, of the President and in particular of the Senate executive. A university Senate has a choice. It can be primarily a place of administrative regulations, rules and procedures but it can also be an arena in which the “big questions” of academy and society come to enjoy prominence on the Agenda.  I wish to suggest five such big questions (the first already referenced earlier) that should constitute a major part of the agenda of Academic Senates concerned with the purposes of a university in the 21^st century:

(1) The representational contents of the curriculum (what we teach)

It matters enormously that Senates step back on a regular basis and ask questions about knowledge, identity and curriculum. What knowledge matters in the 21^st century? Whose knowledge “makes it” into the curriculum? And is the Stanford graduate in any field of study equipped to encounter and act on a complex (integrated and divided) world?

(2) The complexion of the professoriate (who teaches)

It does matter that a Senate asks questions of who teaches. The strength of the best universities in the world depends crucially on the recruitment of the best talent across contexts, cultures and countries. It also conveys to students (and faculty) a crucial point that advanced knowledge is not locked up in one race, gender or culture.

(3) The diversity of the undergraduate (and also graduate) enrolments (whom we teach)

It matters that a Senate keeps returning to the question of who the student is we are privileged to teach. All students benefit from the knowledge that comes with learning from and alongside students from different class, race and ethnic backgrounds but also from other countries. (It always puzzles me that a university can boast, for the purposes of improved rankings, about the exclusivity of its entering first year class). It is also true that the strength of Stanford’s academic programs has always depended on the recruitment of the most talented graduate students on the planet.

(4) The methods of teaching (how we teach)

It is difficult to imagine a Senate in the heart of the Silicon Valley not returning to the agenda the question of the best technologies (in the broadest sense of the word) for teaching in this century. I know Stanford does this well. And yet efficacious teaching is about much more than technology-led instruction or teaching innovations in the classroom; it is about powerful teaching that engages student minds, develops criticality, stirs social and intellectual discomfort, and prepares those who seek learning to become comfortable with uncertainty. In short, how does the Stanford Senate account for teaching in this large and complex institution?

(5) The impacts on learning (whether teaching matters)

An academic Senate agenda should be concerned with the question whether what we teach matters in the lives of students. Powerful teaching is only evident in powerful learning. But this has to be assessed beyond the limiting confines of passing or failing in modules, courses or even degrees. Such assessment asks questions about the enduring effects of the educational experience beyond marketing anecdotes or even “feedback loops” from the corporate environment. Do graduates from this great university do much more than earn a living on a well-paid job? That surely must be among the broader purposes of a Stanford education and, therefore, a concern of the Senate.”

Some things I’ve been reading:

• Magic Leap. Every now and then I read an article or watch a video and think “This is the future” – this is one of those articles…”This is what disruption on a large scale looks like” – WIRED reviews Magic Leap, the pioneer in ‘mixed reality.’ This really could change everything.
• I’ve been reading the London Review of Books quite a bit lately. I think it’s the best journalism that exists. Period. James Meek gave a fantastic lecture this year titled “Robin Hood in a time of Austerity” – this is the best article I’ve read this year. It changed the way I think about so many things and the prose is perfect.   Naomi Klein is her usual scathing self in “Let Them Drown” (LRB June 2016) where she reflects on Edward Said and artfully shows how structural racism  and ‘othering’ are intimately related to climate change. I discovered the inimitable Tariq Ali in reading his article “The New World Disorder” (LRB, April 2015). I am now steadily reading through his other LRB articles
• Rowan Williams writes an article-review of a new book about Hitler: “A nervous breakdown in the body politic” and artfully shows the parallels with Trump.
• The Guardian writes a brilliant article “The $10billion question: What happened to the Marcos’ Millions?” – infuriating and eye-opening.
• The New Yorker on “The Bank Robber: The Computer Technician who Exposed a Swiss Bank’s Darkest Secrets” (also see this FT podcast on “Unravelling How the Secrecy Industry Works“)
• Google Fonts is releasing a bunch of free fonts – yay!
• This is coolest thing on the Internet at the moment – the innate patterns of Nature. Wow.  thanks @cblatts
• A 2012 presentation by Linda Darling-Hammond: “Assessing 21st Century Skills“
• “Is Estonia the new Finland?” – merging equity & excellence #PISA  (via @Zakronos)
• The Character Lab  (thanks Ashley Visagie for alerting me to this!)
• Martin Gustafsson writes an op-ed in the Business Day titled “Education trends point to notable improvements being made.” Martin’s work is always worth reading.
• Report on Foundation Phase Conference (DoE & UNICEF 2008)  De Ja Vu! 8 years later and we’re still stuck on the SAME issue. If we can’t get Foundation Phase right we aren’t going to get the rest right.
• Social justice books for kids

New Research:

• Mohohlwane, N. & Taylor, S. (2015). Using impact evaluation for education policy innovations: the case of early grade literacy in South Africa. Evaluation Matters. 2015(2).
• Flesich, B., Schoer, V., Roberts, G., & Thornton, A. (2016). System-wide improvement if early-grade mathematics: New evidence from Gauteng Primary Language and Mathematics Strategy. International Journal of Educational Development. 49 pp. 157-174

This article reports on a two-year evaluation of the Gauteng Primary Language and Mathematics Strategy (GPLMS), an innovative system-wide reform intervention designed to improve learning outcomes in Gauteng Province, South Africa. Using data from universal testing of all learners in 2008 on a provincial systemic evaluation, as well as data from the 2011, 2012 and 2013 Annual National Assessment tests, this article investigates whether or not the GPLMS improves the numeracy skills of learners in early-grade mathematics in underperforming schools. Using as identification strategy, the natural experiment that resulted from a miscalculation of the provincial systemic evaluation test scores in 2008, which had been used to assign schools to the GPLMS intervention, the study shows that the GPLMS intervention is positively associated with improvements in early-grade mathematics performance of schools in the neighbourhood around the assignment threshold. The findings of the study contribute to the growing body of knowledge that shows the effectiveness of combining lesson plans, learner resources, and quality teacher capacity building.

• “Civilising in Earnest: Schools and Schooling” – Chapter 18 of Weber’s “Peasants into Frenchmen: The Modernisation of Rural France.” An incredibly insightful read about the role that education plays in unifying a country, standardising a language and promoting the dominant culture. A must read.
• Currently I’m very interested in Catherine Snow‘s research on reading – the way she writes about reading and reading research is both accessible and sophisticated but also totally unpretentious. Start with this article: “Reading Comprehension: Reading for Learning.” I also found an online version of Adger, Snow & Christian’s (2003) “What teachers need to know about language” which looks great.
• I recently gave a workshop/seminar at Herzlia High School in Cape Town on the topic “Assessment: Helping or Hurting the Academic Project?” where we spoke about new thinking in the assessment space, as well as expanding what we consider the academic project to be; including socio-emotional skills, grit, and 21st century skills (Creativity, Collaboration, Critical Thinking, Communication). On this note, NPR published a nice post titled “Non-academic skills are key to success. But what should we call them.”
• Evaluation of Washington DC’s IMPACT policy (controversial teacher-rating system and concomitant replacement of ineffective teachers) had a positive impact on student outcomes
• Pasi Sahlberg writes that Harvard grad students (and all others) should be able to write op-eds and not just academic papers. Obviously I agree. Future students consider yourselves notified.
• BrainPickings covers Krista Tippett’s new book “Becoming Wise: An inquiry into the mystery and art of living.” I thoroughly enjoyed Krista’s interview on Design Matters.
• Cool  TED Talk by Paulo Blikstein from Stanford on his idea of the FabLab@School at Stanford.

• “The End of the Lecture?” by Peter Struck – “In contrast a good lecture should be designed to make a student work harder to prepare for the following one. It will motivate students to carry on the really hard, self-driven work of teaching themselves. It needs to transform data into knowledge by providing a synthesis and modelling for the students how to do it. It tailors the mass of information on a subject into a comprehensible narrative that picks and chooses, making judgments and subordinating some ideas to others. It animates the raw power of the fresh ideas it conveys. In other words, what makes a good lecture in these new formats is pretty much what makes a good lecture at all. Lectures have always been hard to do well, and we would benefit from more time spent working to improve them, something that will happen only by first resisting anti-lectureism, which, as a side effect, absolves us from the task.
• Q&A with Angela Duckworth (of ‘grit’ fame) “One thing we’re doing to learn more about what teachers are doing, what works, and how we can scale it, is we are giving grants to teachers. Teachers probably have better ideas than we do about children and how to help them. What they don’t always have is training in the scientific method, measurement, study design, and statistics. What we’re hoping to do is help those teachers test those ideas in ways that might be more systematic than they might be able to do on their own.”

Research

Minding the gap?’ A national foundation phase teacher supply and demand analysis: 2012-2020 – Green, Adendorf & Mathebula (2015)

Abstract: This paper explores the extent to which foundation phase teacher supply meets demand in South Africa, against a backdrop of considerable change in an education system endeavouring to fulfil the needs of a 21st century society while still battling with significant inequalities in the distribution of skills. The primary purpose of the paper is to use recently sourced teacher education data from a range of national databases to determine to what extent state-led interventions are assisting to meet the foundation phase teacher supply and demand challenge. The data, as well as the more qualitative aspects of their context, are analysed at the macro (national) level to present a more nuanced picture of foundation phase teacher supply and demand. The study attempts to move beyond simply basing an analysis of supply and demand on teacher attrition, and takes into account multiple variables that should be considered in supply and demand planning. It also goes beyond simply matching supply to demand in the most recent year for which data is available, to forecasting a future scenario which will need to be planned for. The paper concludes by suggesting steps that should be taken to ensure a better match between supply and demand.

Making Good Use of New Assessments: Interpreting and Using Scores From the Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium (2015) by Linda Darling-Hammond Edward Haertel James Pellegrino. Important thinking about around new assessments.

Quasi-experimental evidence on the effects of mother tongue-based education on reading skills and early labour market outcomes (Bethlehem A. Argaw∗ Leibniz University of Hanover February 23, 2016)

 Abstract: Prior to the introduction of mother tongue based education in 1994, the language of instruction for most subjects in Ethiopia’s primary schools was the official language (Amharic) – the mother tongue of only one third of the population. This paper uses the variation in individual’s exposure to the policy change across birth cohorts and mother tongues to estimate the effects of language of instruction on reading skills and early labour market outcomes. The results indicate that the reading skills of birth cohorts that gained access to mother tongue-based primary education after 1994 improved significantly by about 11 percentage points. The provision of primary education in mother tongue halved the reading skills gap between Amharic and non-Amharic mother tongue users. The improved reading skills seem to translate into gains in the labour market in terms of the skill contents of jobs held and the type of payment individuals receive for their work. An increase in school enrollment and enhanced parental educational investment at home are identified as potential channels linking mother tongue instruction and an improvement in reading skills.

“Double for Nothing? Experimental Evidence on the Impact of an Unconditional Teacher Salary Increase on Student Performance in Indonesia” (Dee et al, 2016)

Abstract: How does a large unconditional increase in salary affect employee performance in the public sector? We present the first experimental evidence on this question to date in the context of a unique policy change in Indonesia that led to a permanent doubling of base teacher salaries. Using a large-scale randomized experiment across a representative sample of Indonesian schools that affected more than 3,000 teachers and 80,000 students, we find that the doubling of pay significantly improved teacher satisfaction with their income, reduced the incidence of teachers holding outside jobs, and reduced self-reported financial stress. Nevertheless, after two and three years, the doubling in pay led to no improvements in measures of teacher effort or student learning outcomes, suggesting that the salary increase was a transfer to teachers with no discernible impact on student outcomes. Thus, contrary to the predictions of various efficiency wage models of employee behavior (including gift-exchange, reciprocity, and reduced shirking), as well as those of a model where effort on pro-social tasks is a normal good with a positive income elasticity, we find that unconditional increases in salaries of incumbent teachers had no meaningful positive impact on student learning

• My top resource for STATA tutorials whenever I furrow my eyebrows and think “How the heck do I do this?!” –> UCLA’s IDRE
• Slavin on the influence of Economists vs Educationists “If we want educational innovation and research to matter to public policy, we have to speak truth to power, in the language of power. And that language is increasingly the language of rigorous evidence. If we keep speaking it, our friends the economists will finally take evidence from educational research seriously, and that is how policy will change to improve outcomes for children on a grand scale.”
• “Supporting future-oriented learning & teaching — a New Zealand perspective” (Bolstad et al, 2012)
• STATA Cheat Sheets
• DataFirst’s list of 2016 courses on quantitative analysis and STATA (based at UCT). Highly recommended, applications open in April.
• “Why universal basic skills should be the primary development goal” – Hanushek (2015)
• Prof Karin Brodie (Wits) discussing “Professional Learning Communities in Support of Teacher Development” – video
• A 2-minute video of the amazing Ukhahlamba Drakensberg mountains in KZN, where we used to go hiking as kids 🙂

• The story of Judge Lex Mpati who went from being a petrol attendant after matric to the President of the Supreme Court of Appeal and Chancellor of Rhodes University where he studied (bartending on the side to pay for his studies). Such an inspiration that we have people like this who have gone from the very bottom to the very top.
• The World Economic Forum (WEF) has a new report out titled “New Vision for Education: Fostering Social and Emotional Learning Through Technology.” (picture above taken from here). Interesting. Would like to see more research on this. (Again I reiterate that there isn’t anyone looking at grit – ala Duckworth – in South Africa).
• The “What Works Clearinghouse” funded by the US Department of Education is an exceptional piece of scientific wisdom. Reviewing the evidence and coming up with recommendations on “what works” – what a brilliant (and obvious/logical) idea! Anyone in SA want to take this on? 🙂  (Thanks John Aitchison for reminding me of this).
• NATURE has published a “Twenty tips for interpreting scientific claims” – Great!
• Great Quartz article taking a behind-the-scenes look at the Hillary Campaign and how Google’s top dog (Eric Schmidt) is funding a startup that provides analytics support.
• “Labyrinth of Lies” (2015) – great German film about prosecuting those responsible for the atrocities at Auschwitz, and this at a time soon after WW2 when key Nazi officials remained in high office in Germany. I watched this on the plane to Vancouver and was particularly moved by the scene where Jewish survivors explain what happened to them at Auschwitz (at the time this wasn’t discussed in Germany). The dialogue goes silent and all you see is the faces of the secretary transcribing the accounts in disbelief.
• Knight Lab Timeline – Great resource to make Timelines for presentations. Thanks Shelanna Sturgess!

Some presentations I’ve given in the last month:

• My presentation to the Annual National Assessment task team of union representatives and Department officials about how the ANAs can and should be improved.
• “Alleviating binding constraints to quality education for the poor: Using evidence-based prioritisation to overcome the implementation challenge” – my presentation on RESEP’s progress to date on our PSPPD project.
• “Access to Learning in Six West African Countries: Combining PASEC and DHS Data to Create a Composite Indicator” – I co-presented this with one of my masters students (Adaiah Lilenstein) at this year’s CIES conference in Vancouver. Adaiah’s thesis extends the work that Stephen and I did using SACMEQ and DHS for sub-Saharan Africa

Some new research…

• “Schooling inequality, higher education and the labour market: evidence from a graduate tracer study in the Eastern Cape, South Africa” 2015 article by Michael Rogan and John Reynolds comparing graduates from Fort Hare and Rhodes ABSTRACT: An emerging body of research has shown that there are large inequalities in access to higher education in South Africa. There remains a gap, however, in identifying how factors such as schooling background, academic performance, race and gender are linked with key higher education outcomes. In particular, the significance of these factors for first-choice degree attainment at university and in the subsequent transition to the labour market are of interest. This paper addresses these questions by presenting a descriptive and multivariate analysis of data collected through a tracer study which interviewed graduates from two Eastern Cape universities. The results suggest that schooling history, race and gender are associated with career choice and unemployment. These findings have important implications both for equity and for the efficiency of higher education institutions. The article concludes with a discussion of potential policy responses and the implications for equity in higher education.
• “Learning from Failure: why large government policy initiatives have gone so badly wrong in the past and how the chances of success in the future can be improved” by Sheringold (2015)
• System-wide improvement of early-grade mathematics: New evidence from the Gauteng Primary Language and Mathematics StrategyB Fleisch, V Schöer, G Roberts, A Thornton – International Journal of Educational Development 2016 ABSTRACT This article reports on a two-year evaluation of the Gauteng Primary Language and Mathematics Strategy (GPLMS), an innovative system-wide reform intervention designed to improve learning outcomes in Gauteng Province, South Africa. Using data from universal testing of all learners in 2008 on a provincial systemic evaluation, as well as data from the 2011, 2012 and 2013 Annual National Assessment tests, this article investigates whether or not the GPLMS improves the numeracy skills of learners in early-grade mathematics in underperforming schools. Using as identification strategy, the natural experiment that resulted from a miscalculation of the provincial systemic evaluation test scores in 2008, which had been used to assign schools to the GPLMS intervention, the study shows that the GPLMS intervention is positively associated with improvements in early-grade mathematics performance of schools in the neighbourhood around the assignment threshold. The findings of the study contribute to the growing body of knowledge that shows the effectiveness of combining lesson plans, learner resources, and quality teacher capacity building.
• Treating schools to a new administration: Evidence from South Africa of the impact of better practices in the system-level administration of schools M Gustafsson, S Taylor – 2016 ABSTRACT: School examination results are far from ideal measures of progress in schooling systems, yet if analysed with sufficient care these data, which are common in education systems, can serve this purpose. The paper partly deals with how various student selection and year-on-year comparability issues in examinations data can be dealt with. This is demonstrated using South African student-level results, aggregated to the school level, for Grade 12 mathematics in the years 2005 to 2013. This was a period during which provincial boundaries changed, creating a quasi-experiment which is amenable to impact evaluation techniques. Value-added school production functions and fixed effects models are used to establish that movement into a better performing province was associated with large student performance improvements, equal in magnitude to around a year’s worth of progress in a fast improving country. Improvements were not always immediate, however, and the data seem to confirm that substantial gains are only achieved after several years, after students have been exposed to many grades of better teaching. The institutional factors which might explain the improvements are discussed. Spending per student was clearly not a significant explanatory variable. What did seem to matter was more efficient use of non-personnel funds by the authorities, with a special focus on educational materials, the brokering of pacts between stakeholders, including teacher unions, schools and communities, and better monitoring and support by the district office. Moreover, the education department in one province in question, Gauteng, has for many years pursued an approach which is unusual in the South African context, of hiring a substantial number of senior managers within the bureaucracy on fixed term contracts, as opposed to on a permanent basis, the aim being to improve accountability and flexibility at the senior management level.
• Also, this isn’t new (it’s 2012) but I’ll be buying/ordering this volume ASAP: “Handbook of International Large-Scale Assessment: Background, Technical Issues, and Methods of Data Analysis“

• RESEP has released 3 new policy briefs: (1) “Rethinking pre-grade R” (2) “Is school based assessment in matric achieving its potential?” (3) “Improving the calibre of school leadership in South Africa“

• The IEA is developing a new tool, the Literacy and Numeracy Assessment (LaNA) to measure primary school literacy and numeracy and linking items to TIMSS and PIRLS (it’s about time!)
• For those Matrics of 2015 who didn’t qualify to go to university, here’s a list of places in SA that offer free coding courses.
• The impact evaluation outfit 3iE have created this 937-page document: Interventions for improving learning outcomes and access to education in low- and middle-income countries: A systematic review
• SA Provincial budgets & expenditure review: 2010/11 – 2016/17 (Education) – from our efficient friends at SA Treasury.
• Deidre McKloskey – the doyen of everything – gave the Denison commencement address in 2015, titled So What? – everything she writes is worth reading, this especially so. To the extent that we can answer these transcendental questions about our own lives will be the extent to which we live a life we consider meaningful.
• I’ve been looking for a lovely autobiography for some time and it seems I’ve found one – Oliver Sacks “On the Move“
• “Students, Computers and Learning: Making the connection” – new book (Sept 2015) by OECD – pair it with this excellent book review by Audrey Watters of Morozov’s book “To Save Everything, Click Here” (it’s overly skeptical in my view but still very much worth reading).
• “How to get published in an academic journal: top tips from editors” – Guardian article (via Sarah Gravett)
• You MUST watch “Suffragette” – moving, important, timely. So many parallels with movements like BlackLivesMatter and the push for the legalisation of gay marriage.
• (Tomorrow, 25 Jan 2016, at 10am the CEO of Umalusi and I will be discussing the matric standardisation process of 2015 on the Redi Hlabi Show)

• It is worth reading and re-reading the DBE’s “Second detailed indicator report for the basic education sector” published last year. The infrastructural backlogs in the Eastern Cape particularly are truly unbelievable.
• The MEC of Gauteng has proposed rotating principals every September in an effort to curb corruption. As a friend of mine said “It takes at least 3 years to find your feet in a new school – this is like school leadership musical chairs. It’s ludicrous.” I agree.
• New IJER Special Issue on Teacher Rounds, like medical rounds but for teaching practice.
• Instil Education – a private teacher development startup in SA – are looking for an “Instil Fellow” and a “Director of Teacher Development” – links here.
• I’m currently reading through one of my masters students dissertations and came across this lovely quote by Martha Nussbaum:

• “Nothing could be more crucial to democracy than the education of its citizens. Through primary and secondary education, young citizens form, at a crucial age, habits of mind that will be with them all through their lives. They learn to ask questions or not to ask them; to take what they hear at face value or to probe more deeply; to imagine the situation of a person different from themselves or to see a new person as a mere threat to the success of their own projects; to think of themselves as members of a homogeneous group or as members of a nation, and a world, made up of many people and groups, all of whom deserve respect and understanding” – Nussbaum (2006, p.387).