Description: The file contains the individual learner literacy scores as well as the parent or caregiver responses to the home questionnaire.

The data set contains 2897 cases and 251 variables. Abstract: The evaluation follows an experimental- and control-group design. At the outset, it determined the contextual conditions at schools, in classrooms and at home, as well as learner achievement levels. All learners in Grades 1, 4 and 7 in 11 project schools in 2013 comprised the first of three cohorts of the intervention population. Their anticipated achievement gains are compared with those of all learners from five matched control schools.

The evaluation data were collected by means of self-report background questionnaires completed by school principals, teachers and parents/caregivers, as well as a range of language assessment instruments administered among/to the learners. Difference-in-difference analysis was conducted to establish relative achievement gains among learners from project and control schools.

Self-completion

The study is a community based study limited to villages within a demarcated part of a local tribal authority in the Limpopo study. Villages considered for the study had unemployment rates as high as 85% and parents and caregivers were generally unable to support their children's education optimally.

The study is community based and focussed on tribal villages in the Limpopo province. A local tribal authority within the province was sampled and had to meet certain criteria of deprivation:

High unemployment rate

High inability of parents and caregivers to support their children's education

Parents lack of mastery of the English language which would eventually be the school language

Once these village areas had been selected, a complete population of schools, teachers and learners, as it were, would participate in the intervention implementation and evaluation.

A total of 11 experimental and 5 control schools formed part of the study. Within each of the schools all grade 1, 4 and 7 learners were included together with their teachers. There was approximately one school in each village with the exception being where schools were split into junior and senior primary schools. The number of learners per school ranged from approximately 40 to 200 per grade, averaging at just more than 100.