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Education, employment and social protection are top GNU priorities, but must be evidence-based

Education, employment and social protection are top GNU priorities, but must be evidence-based
Vinayak Bhardwaj
By Vinayak Bhardwaj
4 Jul 2024
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Social policies are often driven by political or ideological considerations, and not by what has been proven to work (or not). The new government must urgently move to enact policies to improve education, job opportunities, and social protection.

With the ANC losing its majority for the first time in its three decades of governance, South African voters have overwhelmingly indicated they want more urgent solutions to the pressing problems facing our country than those currently offered. 

It is clear that South Africa’s weak education system, high unemployment, and citizens’ vulnerability to economic hardship are among the concerns expressed by the electorate. As the new government and searches for policy solutions, it is a good time to take stock of policies that are backed by evidence – and those that are not. 

Why does evidence matter?


President Cyril Ramaphosa, in announcing his new Cabinet, laudably committed his government to “evidence-based policy and decision-making”.

Social policies are often driven by political or ideological considerations, and not by what has been proven to work (or not). Randomised evaluations can help policymakers pinpoint the underlying drivers of issues like unemployment, develop responsive strategies, and compare the effectiveness of different policy options so the most impactful, cost-effective programmes can be scaled up.

In this article we identify evidence – including evidence from South Africa – on actionable policies to address the country’s poor and unequal education system, unemployment, and the vulnerability and need for social protection associated with both.

With an unemployment rate of 32.9% as of April 2024, or 45.5% for young people, more than eight million South Africans struggle with joblessness and strain the country’s social protection system. Further, with 81% of Grade 4 students unable to read for meaning in 2021, South Africa’s low educational achievement risks entrenching the country’s slow productivity growth, high unemployment rates, and poverty.

Policymakers have proposed public works, a new National Health Insurance policy, and a basic income grant modelled off the Social Relief of Distress (SRD) grant to offer relief, but concerns remain over how to best target these programmes, the impact on the government’s budget, and opportunities for corruption.

Evidence exists to guide policymakers’ thinking


Jobs:


The ANC-led government launched the youth public works programme “Basic Education Employment Initiative” (BEEI) as part of the Presidential Youth Employment Initiative to help address the economic impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on unemployed youth.

However, evidence from low- and middle-income countries, including Côte d’Ivoire, Malawi, and the DRC suggest that while public works programmes provide short-term employment and earnings boosts to participants, they usually do not lead to lasting labour market benefits when measured a few years later.

Still, it is worth noting that many other public works programmes in the rest of the world, plus the Expanded Public Works Programme (EPWP) in South Africa, focus on manual labour.

BEEI, in contrast, is innovative in that it offers more skilled roles, training on new skills, and other resources that could help people transition into the labour market (e.g. reference letters or the SA Youth online job portal). The impact of BEEI on helping youth transition out of unemployment may therefore diverge from other public works programmes; a rigorous evaluation of BEEI would enable better understanding of the model’s effectiveness.

A different way of addressing youth unemployment has been evaluated directly in South Africa: helping workers credibly signal their skills. This is crucial in a context where many young people can’t access quality education and where degrees may not reliably reflect ability.

Many employers also lack information about job seekers’ skills, leading to low hiring rates or mismatches between job seekers and job requirements. To tackle this issue, the South Africa-based Harambee Youth Employment Accelerator offered skill certifications for young people.

In an evaluation done in partnership with Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL)-affiliated researchers Robert Garlick and Kate Orkin and collaborators Eliana Carranza and Neil Rankin, the skill certifications increased the likelihood of securing a job by approximately 16% and boosted earnings by around 34%, an increase worth 2.3 times the average variable cost of the programmes, suggesting skill certifications could be a cheap addition to existing jobs programmes.

More research is needed on whether skill certification at scale would merely reshuffle which job seekers get the limited number of jobs, or whether this eases hiring and helps employers fill more vacancies and hire more people.

Study


Meanwhile, in a study with the Department of Labour, providing templates for reference letters and sending text reminders to submit these letters improved women’s chances of receiving a call-back and ultimately securing a job.

Beyond signalling skills, another barrier to employment is limited opportunities to develop marketable skills in the first place, particularly for groups like women or young people. Evidence shows that programmes that teach technical skills aren’t effective in every case, but pairing training with complementary features like job placement or career counselling can help.

For example, a digital skills training programme for young people in Kenya increased participants’ earnings (especially women’s) and employment, but only when participants also received a job referral.

Recent research has also demonstrated the importance of soft skills like communication, self-efficacy, and teamwork. Studies across a range of contexts have found that teaching soft skills has increased workers’ chance of keeping a job, strengthened entrepreneurs’ business performance and profitability, and enhanced human capital development among young women.

These proven components of job training programmes could complement policies being brought online, namely the recently announced Unemployment Insurance Fund Labour Activation Programme (LAP) and the Western Cape’s First Work Experience PAY programme.

While these interventions cannot address South Africa’s wider structural unemployment challenges, even smaller reforms like these can help individuals exit unemployment and become more self-sufficient, and make labour market matching more efficient.

In parallel, improvements to the country’s education system could help foster inclusive growth and ease the structural transition by better equipping citizens to participate in the growing service-based economy.

Education:


Expanding access to quality education is crucial for a nation’s economic and social success; it can boost productivity, reduce crime, enhance social cohesion, promote active citizenship, and reduce inequality.

With a commitment to improving the education system and foundational learning, in recent years the government developed the integrated early childhood development policy, provided additional support materials for teaching and learning, introduced the language of instruction policy, invested in early grade reading assessments, and more.

Building on these efforts to improve student learning outcomes, the new government should continue to innovate, test new programmes, and increasingly target investments toward policies backed by global evidence.

Investing in early childhood development programmes is one powerful avenue through which caregivers and governments can support students in developing foundational skills. As the Basic Education Laws Amendment (Bela) Bill seeks to make Grade R compulsory by 2030, it is important to look to global evidence to inform implementation planning.

For example, the Department of Basic Education (DBE) should consider supporting Grade R institutions to enhance quality, especially as students will be able to attend both formal and informal programmes. Studies in Colombia, India, Ghana, and Jamaica have found that efforts to increase preschool quality by providing teachers with support from low-cost video conferencing, maths games, teacher training, and/or in-class support have improved learning and cognitive outcomes (GEEAP).

Additionally, encouraging caregivers to play and interact with children aged up to three in a stimulating way has been found to regularly improve children’s cognitive development. Where data was available among evaluated early childhood stimulation programmes, costs ranged from $134.40-$500 (R2,460-R9,150) per child per year. Investing in childhood stimulation may be a powerful way to complement South Africa’s efforts to improve access to quality preschool. 

Another model to improve learning outcomes for children is through structured pedagogy – a coordinated package of investments that include lesson plans, learning materials, ongoing skills-based teacher training, and mentoring.

South Africa has been a pioneer in experimenting with structured pedagogy, finding numerous variations that are effective at improving learning outcomes.

For example, a study by J-PAL affiliated researcher Jacobus Cilliers and co-authors found that the Setswana Early Grade Reading Study programme – which provided teachers with lesson plans, teaching materials, and one-on-one coaching – improved students’ Setswana oral reading fluency, enhanced both Setswana and English written comprehension, and increased grade progression four years after the programme ended.

Cost-effective models


Still, we have more to learn about designing and scaling cost-effective structured pedagogy models. J-PAL Africa Scientific Director Cally Ardington, in collaboration with Funda Wande and the Western Cape Education Department, is testing a structured pedagogy approach that leverages existing subject advisers to train and mentor teachers. Provincial education departments across South Africa should consider scaling this programme, if found effective and feasible in their context, and continue innovating and partnering to test their own models.

Yet another promising intervention to improve learning outcomes is tailoring instruction to students by learning level for part of the day, rather than teaching the same content to students of the same age or grade. Results from 13 randomised evaluations demonstrate that this can be effective if delivered by teachers, volunteers, or even technology, within the school timetable, after school, or during school breaks. 

In an analysis of 27 education programmes with cost data, programmes that tailored instruction to students’ learning levels were among the most cost-effective in raising test scores. In a context with high learning inequality, tailoring instruction to student learning levels could be an effective way to catch up students.

The Department of Basic Education (DBE) is conducting the Early Grade Mathematics Research Project to develop a tailored instruction programme for mathematics. However, additional contextualisation is required for similar literacy programmes, as implementing tailored instruction programmes relies on teachers conducting quick assessments of student learning, and many existing global resources are poorly suited to African languages.

Together with the DBE, Professor Ardington has worked to develop a set of literacy benchmarks in African languages, and she is also working to develop an AI tool to enable teachers to quickly assess literacy in African languages.

The DBE should continue to invest in strong evidence-based policymaking partnerships with South African researchers and global actors to address our literacy and numeracy crises and improve the education system for South Africa’s children.

Social protection:


Over the past years, the government has encouragingly turned to evidence to inform social protection policy.

During Covid-19, J-PAL affiliated researcher Kate Orkin and collaborators Murray Leibrandt, Ingrid Woolard and Maya Goldman closely advised the Department of Social Development to transition from delivering assistance such as food parcels to providing it in cash.

The change was motivated by research comparing different modalities of assistance delivery and expanded aid coverage from 1.2 million people to 28 million. The team’s work further guided the design of the Social Relief of Distress (SRD) grant, introduced as a temporary grant for unemployed individuals in 2020, which has been extended into 2025 informed by the research.

As the government considers the possibility of making SRD a universal (or near-universal) basic income programme, it must continue drawing on evidence to assess the trade-offs between universal and targeted aid.

Targeted programmes tend to concentrate around those in most need, but incur errors that exclude some people from receiving benefits. Universal assistance ensures wider coverage, but implies people will receive about the same assistance regardless of their income.

Similarly, with a new National Health Insurance policy just signed into law in May 2024, a limited evidence base can help guide implementation, including research on effective strategies to increase insurance enrolment.

Where does South Africa go from here?


It is urgent that the new government moves quickly to enact evidence-based policies to improve education, job opportunities, and social protection. In particular, initiatives like skill certification programmes, job training, structured pedagogy, and tailored instruction show promise.

Across these policy issues and beyond, partnering with expert researchers can help guide implementation or answer open questions.

More broadly, prioritising evidence in policy decisions can help South Africa drive inclusive growth and stand on par with other innovative governments that are actively making strides in institutionalising the use of evidence.

For example, the government of Indonesia relied on evidence to design and scale a major social protection programme now reaching 65.67 million people.

South African policymakers and entities like J-PAL Africa should be equally proactive in identifying opportunities to use evidence to improve outcomes for their citizens and champion the evidence-based policymaking movement. DM

Dr Vinayak Bhardwaj is Executive Director of J-PAL Africa, based at the University of Cape Town. He holds a master’s degree in chemical engineering from UCT, and Master’s and doctoral degrees in public health from Johns Hopkins University. The Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL) is a global research centre working to reduce poverty by ensuring that policy is informed by scientific evidence. Anchored by a network of more than 900 researchers at universities around the world, J-PAL conducts randomised impact evaluations to answer critical questions in the fight against poverty. J-PAL co-founders Abhijit Banerjee and Esther Duflo, with longtime affiliate Michael Kremer, were awarded the 2019 Nobel Prize in Economics for their pioneering approach to alleviating global poverty.

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