The Complexities of International Large-Scale Assessments in a Developing Context

This chapter focuses on South Africa as a developing nation in navigating the complexities of learning to read and measuring trends in reading achievement. It also introduces additional data analysis, perspectives and contextualisation of South Africa’s participation history in PIRLS, directing attention to the diverse South African population of learners who wrote the assessment over three cycles of administration in the decade spanning 2006 to 2016. It aims to familiarise readers with the complexities of the country’s educational system(s) and provides pertinent background information. Given this background, the chapter outlines South Africa’s participation in PIRLS in the context of other participating countries, also focusing on what was assessed and on changes made to design decisions across cycles. The chapter concludes by briefly outlining the themes of the other chapters in this book and the implications of the secondary studies referred to in those chapters.