In recent times, more African countries have participated in international assessments than previously (Howie, 2013a). This is partly in response to the international movement towards enhancing quality in education (Howie, 2011; Howie 2013, UNESCO, 2011) and the desire to have more effective means of monitoring the interventions in reading, language and mathematics in particular. Governments are cognisant of spending significant proportions of their national budgets on education but in many cases the outcomes of the various education systems are below the desired levels of achievement (UNESCO, 2011).

 In particular over the past two decades, South Africa and its neighbour Botswana have taken part in the Progress in International Reading Literacy Studies (2006, 2011) as well as in the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (Howie, Venter, van Staden, et al, 2008; Howie, 2013a; Howie, van Staden, Tshele et al, 2012; Mullis, Martin, Foy et al, 2012). PIRLS had a significant impact on education and language in South Africa (Howie & Venter, 2012). Both countries participated in 2011 in the prePIRLS, as well as PIRLS, the main study and more difficult assessment. However, whilst both countries assessed Grade 4 learners in prePIRLS, there was a difference in PIRLS where Botswana tested Grade 6 and South Africa tested Grade 5 learners. Whilst these two countries vary in some of their characteristics, such as size and population, they share amongst others a common language (Setswana) and a significant proportion of both countries’ population reside in rural areas. In South Africa, almost 50% of the population reside in the rural areas and therefore rural education is of considerable concern to policymakers in education. Both countries participated in these international assessments for the purpose of system monitoring and to evaluate the effectiveness of their educational policies. The achievement levels for the prePIRLS assessment for both Botswana (463, se=3.5) and South Africa (461, se=3.7) were similar but both were well below the third participating country, Colombia (576, se = 3.4) in prePIRLS (Mullis et al, 2012, p.39).

In this paper, an attempt is made to compare the effect of the rurality on schooling and reading achievement in both countries concentrating first on national level and then also within South Africa on the learners tested in Setswana. Previous research (Carnoy, Chisholm, Chilisa, 2012) conducted revealed some significant differences between learners and schools in Botswana and South Africa and focused on explaining partly the achievement in mathematics. Of interest was that they found that Botswanan pupils had higher achievement levels compared to a comparable sample of South African learners. However, they also found that differences in the mathematics achievement could be partly explained by the teaching skills and process of education delivery as Botswana had better teacher resources, better teaching skills and spent more time on task than in South Africa (Carnoy et al, 2012:4). Given these results, and the characteristics of the two countries compared earlier, this paper chooses to focus on effect of rurality and its effect on reading and the conditions for reading in attempt to analyse the extent to which this is true of reading achievement and in rural locations. The benefit of the rigorous design of the PIRLS and prePIRLS studies (Mullis, Martin, Kennedy et al, 2009) offers a unique and enhanced opportunity to study the rurality effect on a comparative basis. The conceptual framework for this study is informed by the work of Carnoy et al, 2012 as well as previous work undertaken by van Staden, (see van Staden & Howie, 2012), Zimmerman, (see Zimmerman, Howie & Smit, 2011 for details) focusing on PIRLS in South Africa and Howie (in press).

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