Increasing reference in the media and public discussions to high and rising levels of graduate unemployment in the South African labour market has raised concern about the functionality of South Africa’s higher education system and the employability of the graduates that it produces. While...

During the last two decades state funding of higher education in South Africa has decreased substantially (especially if public expenditure of HE as a percentage of GDP is used as a yardstick). HE institutions were forced to increase tuition fees and rely more on the third income stream to...

This paper sets out the reasoning behind the fuzzy set approach to poverty measurement as a means to address both vertical and horizontal vagueness of poverty. The linear approach of Cerioli and Zani and the totally fuzzy and relative approach of Cheli and Lemmi are discussed and applied to the...

International trade in higher education services provides opportunities for stimulating economic development and fostering the mobility of knowledge, leading to increased intellectual capital, which is vital for a country to remain competitive in a globalising world. The aim of this paper is to...

Higher education displays characteristics of both private and public goods and there is a trend worldwide to expect individuals to pay more of the costs of their higher education. In South Africa public funding of higher education decreased from 0.86% of GDP in 1986 to only 0.66% in 2006. Due to...

In South Africa earnings inequality between races still persists despite the convergence of educational attainment between races. There is a now a growing body of evidence which suggests that the quality of education received by South Africans differs markedly amongst and within race groups, and...

The poor state of quality education in South Africa is confirmed by the weak performance of South African students on international tests, even when compared to countries with comparatively poorer education systems. This paper aims to shed light on this issue through the use of the PIRLS 2006...

The many and varied links between student socio-economic status and educational outcomes have been well documented in the South African economics of education literature. The strong legacy of apartheid and the consequent correlation between education and wealth have meant that, generally...

For many poor South African children, who are predominantly located in the historically disadvantaged part of the school system, the ongoing low quality of education acts as a poverty trap by precluding them from achieving the level of educational outcomes necessary to be competitive in the...

This study quantifies a year’s worth of mathematics learning in South Africa (0.3 standard deviations) and uses this measure to develop empirically-calibrated learning trajectories. Two main findings are, (1) only the top 16% of South African Grade 3 children are performing at an appropriate...