Abstract
The article describes the background to, and implementation of, the Gauteng Primary Language and Mathematics Strategy (GPLMS) in South Africa from 2010 to 2014—an initiative aimed at system-wide instructional improvement in the Global South. Working in over 1000 underperforming primary schools in poor- and working-class communities, the government-led GPLMS combined scripted lesson plans, provision of quality learner materials and personalised instructional coaching to enable teachers to adopt more effective instructional practices.
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Notes
The study results speak only to the impact of the intervention on a limited pool of the intervention schools and cannot be generalised to all schools that were part of the intervention. The study also focuses on only one indicator, Grade 3 mathematics. The study compared programme impact by comparing arbitrarily selected better-performing intervention schools to similar schools that were not part of the intervention.
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Fleisch, B. System-wide improvement at the instructional core: Changing reading teaching in South Africa. J Educ Change 17, 437–451 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10833-016-9282-8
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10833-016-9282-8