Previous studies on the role of the school in influencing attainment in South African schools have
concluded that the inequalities which are known to exist in these are still largely due to the legacy of
the Apartheid system on schooling. More recently policy focus has been on narrowing the gap
between these in terms of the inequality in school resource levels and facilities.
The work presented here investigates which pupil background, school context and school resources
(human and physical) factors affect individual pupil academic attainment by concentrating on
developing separate multi-level models for individual learners of similar socio-economic status. This
approach allows for the possibility that different in and out of school factors combine to explain the
differences in attained mathematics and reading scores of South African Grade 6 pupils participating
in the SACMEQ II survey in 2000, and that this could be dependent on the socio-economic status of
the learner.
The conclusion discusses some pointers for South African policy. It is argued that focus should be
wider than just on the resourcing levels of schools and whether or not they are efficient in using
these resources to improve educational outcomes. The evidence points to the need additionally to
target deprived, mainly rural, neighbourhoods and develop interventions and alternative strategies to
overcome some of the acute social disadvantages pupils, especially of lowest socio-economic status,
bring with them into school. These include poor nutrition, lower fluency levels in the language of
instruction used in schools and higher chances of living away from home to be schooled.