RESEP has been involved in long-term research related to issues of poverty, income distribution, social mobility, economic development, and social policy since 2007.

The research think tank was invited to write a proposal for a research partnership between RESEP and the Epoch and Optima Trusts – independent trusts founded by Anglo American – in response to the trusts’ desire to fund strategic research on education and education policy in South Africa. The value of the grant is R6.5 million per year over five years, adjusted annually to account for inflation.

According to this proposal, learning outcomes in South Africa remain weak and unequal, and any performance gains have been significantly compromised through disruptions caused by the Covid-19 pandemic.

"Tracking system performance and identifying avenues to support system improvement remain as critical as ever," state the researchers, led by Prof Servaas van der Berg, who held the South African National Research Chair in the Economics of Social Policy for 15 years until 2022.

In a post-Covid-19 recovery period, the proposal envisages a five-year programme of research to track learning and inequalities in learning, as well as uncover new avenues for enhancing system performance through remediation (as an alternative to repetition), improved assessment and a better understanding of the contribution of socio-emotional skills to academic outcomes.

According to the researchers, the first component of the research will be quantitative and will aim to analyse existing and new education data sets. The analysis will seek to inform policymaking and identify areas for improvement as well as inform the qualitative work. The second component will be qualitative and will aim to observe classrooms as laboratories for learning. This will be done in collaboration with researchers from the University of Cape Town.

The third component will be building education research capacity within RESEP and the country, by supporting PhD and post-doctoral researchers within the research programme as well as by providing training, mentoring, and networking opportunities for other researchers and policymakers.

"Creating capacity for longer-term research is an important part of what we do at RESEP," says Van der Berg.

Thanks to this funding, RESEP can now offer bursaries to at least two master’s students, three doctoral students and two postdoctoral researchers.

"There isn’t that much research funding available through the formal system anymore, and a grant such as this one enables us to offer our researchers extended funding support, thus keeping them in the academic environment for longer. This is an important part of their growth as researchers."

This funding will allow RESEP to build on current research, such as "Covid-19 and inequality in reading outcomes in South Africa: PIRLS 2016 and 2021", "Repetition and dropout in South Africa before, during and after Covid-19" and "Early Grade Repetition in South Africa: Implications for Reading".