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Grade repetition in South Africa : impacts on achievement, flows, and school completion
Thesis (PhD)--Stellenbosch University, 2025.
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Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University
2026
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| _version_ | 1867614118657130496 |
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| access_status_str | Open Access |
| author | Selkirk, Rebecca Joy |
| author2 | Van der Berg, Servaas |
| author_browse | Selkirk, Rebecca Joy Van der Berg, Servaas |
| author_facet | Van der Berg, Servaas Selkirk, Rebecca Joy |
| author_sort | Selkirk, Rebecca Joy |
| collection | Thesis |
| dc_rights_str_mv | Stellenbosch University |
| description | Thesis (PhD)--Stellenbosch University, 2025. |
| format | Thesis |
| id | oai:scholar.sun.ac.za:10019.1/134815 |
| institution | Stellenbosch University (South Africa) |
| last_indexed | 2026-06-10T12:46:57.306Z |
| license_str | Other — see source repository |
| provenance_str_mv | Harvested via OAI-PMH from SUNScholar — Stellenbosch University Repository |
| publishDate | 2026 |
| publishDateRange | 2026 |
| publishDateSort | 2026 |
| publisher | Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University |
| publisherStr | Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University |
| record_format | dspace |
| source_str | SUNScholar — Stellenbosch University Repository |
| spelling | oai:scholar.sun.ac.za:10019.1/134815 Grade repetition in South Africa : impacts on achievement, flows, and school completion Selkirk, Rebecca Joy Van der Berg, Servaas Wills, Gabrielle Stellenbosch University. Faculty of Economic and Management Sciences. Dept. of Economics. Grade repetition -- South Africa Educational tests and measurements -- South Africa Academic achievement -- South Africa Educational evaluation -- South Africa School failure -- South Africa UCTD Thesis (PhD)--Stellenbosch University, 2025. Selkirk, R. J. 2025. Grade Repetition in South Africa: Impacts on Achievement, Flows, and School Completion. Unpublished doctoral dissertation. Stellenbosch: Stellenbosch University [online]. Available: https://scholar.sun.ac.za/items/eef1edaa-082e-41be-b908-200555e63c8c ENGLISH SUMMARY: Despite its high costs and questionable benefits, grade repetition is an oft-overlooked topic in South African education research. While international studies have debated repetition’s effectiveness, findings are usually context-specific and not applicable to upper-middle-income countries like South Africa. This thesis aims to advance understanding of local repetition and demonstrate it is a topic that warrants more research and policy focus—particularly in relation to South Africa’s high-stakes school-exit examination, the National Senior Certificate (NSC). The introductory chapter outlines the challenges of studying grade repetition and supplies contextual information on local repetition—including the large declines experienced during the COVID-19 pandemic. It motivates why South Africa’s repetition should be studied, and how repetition research can benefit from being investigated in tandem with the NSC examinations. Chapter 2 presents a longitudinal study of Western Cape learners to assesses how well repetition is assigned and how it affects learner progression and achievement. Findings suggest that repetition is generally targeted at academically weaker learners, not a ‘lottery’ as often speculated. No convincing long-term positive effects of repetition are found, but there is some evidence that earlier repetition is less detrimental. It is also demonstrated that failure to control for pre-repetition achievement greatly (downwardly) biases repetition’s estimated associations with future outcomes. Chapters 3 and 4 focus on the Further Education and Training (FET) phase—Grades 10 to 12—where repetition is high and influences NSC participation. Chapter 3 investigates the association between Western Cape schools’ Grade 11 repetition rates and NSC pass rates, controlling for prior Grade 9 achievement. It finds that higher Grade 11 repetition is associated with improved NSC pass rates—suggesting that schools may indeed benefit from ‘gatekeeping’—but this association weakened during the pandemic. The analysis also identifies that NSC performance in 2021 was much higher than predicted, especially for disadvantaged schools. This coincides with the large decline in Grade 11 repetition rates at the end of 2020, raising concerns that the NSC mark standardization process may have unintentionally introduced grade inflation in 2021. Chapter 4 delves deeper into NSC results, considering national NSC achievement at a learner-level in four key years (2011, 2019, 2021, and 2023). The analysis investigates the determinants of NSC achievement and decomposes the changes in achievement across time. It finds that overage status (proxying for prior repetition) is consistently negatively associated with NSC achievement. Yet, despite large changes in the age composition of NSC cohorts, age contributes little to the differences in NSC achievement between years. Other observable compositional changes similarly explain little, and counterintuitive findings emerge along socioeconomic lines over the pandemic period. Discussion of the ‘unexplained’ changes in NSC achievement shows that although several factors may have contributed to improvements post-2019, grade inflation cannot be ruled out. The final chapter synthesises the thesis’ findings and highlights how questions surrounding the NSC mark standardization process hinder efforts to determine the causal impact of FET phase repetition policies. It provides practical recommendations to address various data limitations, and identifies promising areas for future policy-relevant repetition research. AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: Geen opsomming beskikbaar. Doctoral 2026-01-09T07:50:22Z 2026-01-09T07:50:22Z 2025-12 Thesis https://scholar.sun.ac.za/handle/10019.1/134815 Stellenbosch University 215 pages : illustrations, includes annexures application/pdf Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University |
| spellingShingle | Grade repetition -- South Africa Educational tests and measurements -- South Africa Academic achievement -- South Africa Educational evaluation -- South Africa School failure -- South Africa UCTD Selkirk, Rebecca Joy Grade repetition in South Africa : impacts on achievement, flows, and school completion |
| title | Grade repetition in South Africa : impacts on achievement, flows, and school completion |
| title_full | Grade repetition in South Africa : impacts on achievement, flows, and school completion |
| title_fullStr | Grade repetition in South Africa : impacts on achievement, flows, and school completion |
| title_full_unstemmed | Grade repetition in South Africa : impacts on achievement, flows, and school completion |
| title_short | Grade repetition in South Africa : impacts on achievement, flows, and school completion |
| title_sort | grade repetition in south africa impacts on achievement flows and school completion |
| topic | Grade repetition -- South Africa Educational tests and measurements -- South Africa Academic achievement -- South Africa Educational evaluation -- South Africa School failure -- South Africa UCTD |
| url | https://scholar.sun.ac.za/handle/10019.1/134815 |
| work_keys_str_mv | AT selkirkrebeccajoy graderepetitioninsouthafricaimpactsonachievementflowsandschoolcompletion |