AFRICA

‘I want to change what happens,’ says legendary researcher
Having turned 71 in January 2024, Professor Servaas van der Berg of the Department of Economics at Stellenbosch University (SU) in South Africa has entered what might be called the twilight of his career.Still – perhaps now more than ever, his many years of experience having matured into wisdom – his passion for making a difference shines bright.
“One can be only an observer and say: ‘I’m a scholar, I’m a researcher, I want to know what happens.’ But, for me, there’s more. I want to change what happens,” he says.
Poverty and inequality
Seeking to understand the twin scourge of poverty and inequality in the context of his home country, and figuring out how best to combat it has been the main focus of Van der Berg’s distinguished academic career.
“We continue to live in a society in which distributional conflict is central. Formal discrimination in public spending was removed after 1994, but we still have a large proportion of the population who are poor because the problem lies in what happens in the labour market, where we have very great inequality.”
Van der Berg sees poverty and financial inequality as resulting from the “weak or low levels and quality of education” that most people in South Africa continue to face, “compared to those who have gained relatively high skills [... and can] attract high wages and maintain a relatively good standard of living”.
“So,” he says, “if you want to change the economy, you have to start with the education system.”
Gap between poor and wealthy schools
“It’s wonderful that some children now have the opportunity to get into good schools, but if it is simply a small minority, we’re still not tackling the main issue.
“I work with the idea that we’ve got only about 15% of the population who are incorporated into the mainstream of the economy, and about 15% of schoolchildren who are in well-functioning schools.
“And those two things are linked. It’s those in the other 85% of schools who end up without jobs, or in jobs where they earn very little. This duality in the economy and the education system are still reflections of what we had in the past.
“That was one of my earlier contributions: characterising our education system as bimodal, with two distinct parts – poor and wealthy schools – that function like two separate subsystems,” Van der Berg says.
The economics of education
To fully appreciate the significance of his contribution over the years, it is important to grasp that he has focused on education for most of his career, but as an economist.
He chose to target education, not only because it is an area in great need of improvement in South Africa, but also because he considers it key to unlocking socio-economic advancement for the population.
As a researcher in development economics and the economics of education, he uses analytical methods well established in the economic sciences – especially quantitative methods such as the statistical analysis of large data sets – to cast light on the challenges associated with policymaking in education.
Data wizardry
“In the economics of education, you’re bringing econometric tools to answer education questions,” explains Dr Nompumelelo Mohohlwane, a deputy director in South Africa’s Department of Basic Education (DBE) whose PhD was co-supervised by Van der Berg.
It’s seeing the economics perspective as a skill set and a tool set that you can then apply to different dimensions. I think not enough of that is happening in South Africa.”
Van der Berg concurs: “In the past, very little data analysis was done in education [research] in South Africa. We try to overcome this by obtaining whatever data is available, analysing it, and placing it in the public domain in a way that is relatively user friendly and speaks to policy needs at the same time.”
SARChI Chair
In 2008, Van der Berg was awarded a prestigious research chair in the economics of social policy. This formed part of the South African Research Chairs Initiative (SARChI), funded by the country’s Department of Science and Innovation (DSI), through the National Research Foundation (NRF).
At the time, Van der Berg’s successful proposal stated that South Africa had a dearth of quantitative educational research and research on the economics of education. As such, the goal with the Chair would be to concentrate on education, considering the urgent policy issues in this field, and to focus specifically on equity and educational outcomes in schools serving the poor.
When the Chair phase came to an end in 2022, Van der Berg reported that it had stimulated high-quality social policy research (particularly empirical research in the economics of education), that contributed to addressing social issues, developed and analysed new data sets, and influenced social and economic policymaking.
Capacity-building
Much can be said about each of these aspects but, when asked for his input, Dr Nic Spaull, a former student and colleague of Van der Berg, highlighted capacity-building above all.
“Servaas’ biggest contribution is the group of people that he has mentored. If you look at how they are now scattered across the country and the rest of the world, and at the roles that they occupy, they are clearly having an incredible impact,” he says.
Having completed both his masters and doctoral degrees under Van der Berg’s supervision, Spaull says: “Servaas has easily been the most influential mentor in my life.” In 2023, he moved to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, where he leads efforts to improve foundational literacy and numeracy in Sub-Saharan Africa.
Attracting students
As a professional scholar, Van der Berg views research as a powerful tool, yet he takes care not to neglect another important implement in the academic’s toolbox, namely, teaching.
“For me, it has always been important to convey to students the type of things that I’m interested in and the conclusions we draw from our data analyses, thereby engendering a better understanding of the South African situation,” he says.
“Even when I was awarded the SARChI Chair, I didn’t want to reduce my teaching load. I particularly retained my third-year class because that’s where many of my postgraduate students come from.
“Those students who share my moral commitment to dealing with poverty and inequality are typically attracted to the work that the Chair does, and many of them end up doing their masters or PhDs with us. That’s very rewarding.”
A research group aimed at impact
Out of Van der Berg’s SARChI Chair developed RESEP, now considered to be a leading research group in the economics of education on the African continent.
The acronym stands for Research on Socio-economic Policy, and the group comprises researchers and students interested in poverty, income distribution, social mobility, economic development, and social policy, including that around education, health and labour issues.
“RESEP began when everyone realised that Servaas was a kind of grandfather or patriarch for a group of people working together that was very large but not formalised,” says Spaull.
He adds: “Working with Servaas is a very collaborative experience. He sets the tone very early on, namely that research is not about publishing in journals or climbing the ladder, but about impact. It’s about trying to shift outcomes for the worst-off in society, whether you’re dealing with poverty or education or health.
“He modelled that for us – how to do impactful work. I think that we underestimate the importance of that.”
An enduring legacy
Van der Berg’s career embodies a steadfast commitment to using his role as academic to fight poverty and inequality in South Africa.
He has had a big influence on the country’s education policy, but perhaps his most enduring legacy will be a unique brand of honest analysis and evidence-based solution-finding in the tackling of socio-economic challenges.