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Children in sub-Saharan African countries face higher exposure to gender-based violence (GBV) compared to their counterparts in other world regions (United Nations Children's Fund [UNICEF], 2014). When GBV occurs in schools, it severely endangers access to education. Using the third round of data of the Southern and Eastern Africa Consortium for Monitoring Educational Quality (SACMEQ) from over 60,000 Grade 6 learners across 14 countries, we examined the relationship between GBV in primary schools and learners' absenteeism. Findings indicate that sexual harassment perpetrated by teachers significantly increases learners' absenteeism. In contrast, effects were less clear when the perpetrator was a fellow learner. Effects found are similar in magnitude for girls and boys. Violence prevention education programmes and stricter punishment for offenders are needed to establish a safer school environment and overcome harassment-related barriers to learning.

Previous studies have paid considerable attention to the impact on a child's primary education of attending pre-primary school. Researchers have asserted that early educational intervention can compensate for the effects of poverty and inadequate learning environments on child development and school success. This study analyzes the relationship between pre-primary education and student reading and mathematics achievement in the sixth grade, focusing on disadvantaged children, in countries that participated in the Southern and Eastern Africa Consortium for Monitoring Educational Quality (SACMEQ) III project. The results show that the achievement of children who attended pre-primary education is higher than that of those who did not. The achievement of children who have many home resources for learning is better than that of children who have a few such resources. In almost all countries, disadvantaged children's achievement is increased when they attend pre-primary education. However, the contribution of pre-primary education to ameliorating social inequalities is different in the various contexts of different countries. These findings contribute to the discussion on the importance of early childhood care and education, especially in sub-Saharan Africa.

The learning gap between urban and rural areas is a persistent problem in many sub-Saharan African countries. Previous studies have found that the urban-rural learning gap is attributed to the fact that student characteristics and school resources are different in urban and rural areas. Our study updates this finding by using the latest dataset and further examines the changes in the attributed sources over time. Using 15 educational systems in sub-Saharan Africa, we examined 4 potential sources of the gap: student, family, teacher, and school characteristics. Our results reveal that the urban-rural learning gap in recent years is attributed mostly to differences in school and family characteristics. We also found that the attribution remains the same over time from 2004 to 2011 and that the attribution to family characteristics' differences became slightly greater than the one to school characteristics' differences.

This study aims to compare Turkey to the first three countries from each continent in terms of educational indicators in 2015 Human Development Report. In line with this aim, it is a case study utilizing document review method. Analysis of the data has been carried out on a single document which is United Nations Development Report (2015). To determine the sample, data were categorized according to continents and the first three countries of continents were compared to Turkey. The indicators evaluated in the scope of this study are expected and net enrollment rates, population with at least some secondary education, inequality in education and adjusted ineqaulity index in education, satisfaction with education quality, international student mobility, workforce with higher education, education achievements and the population between 15-24 unemployed and unschooled. The findings of the study showed that Turkey does not have satisfying values in terms of these indicators and appears at the bottom of the list or very close to the bottom. It is also suggested that Turkey should invest more to education to have a better performance in human development index.

Sub-Saharan African countries have made remarkable strides in closing the gender gap in primary enrolment and more girls than ever are attending school. With the existing gender differentials in youth literacy rates, an important question is whether they are learning as well as their male classmates. This article explored factors that contribute to gender gaps in reading for sixth-grade pupils from 61 396 pupils from 15 countries in the third evaluation of the Southern and Eastern Africa Consortium for Monitoring Educational Quality (SACMEQ III). Within-class sex differences in test score performance are estimated using ordinary least squares regression models. This is done by analysing the factors associated with female learning that inhibit school attendance and class participation. The results show a female disadvantage in reading in a little under half of the countries studied, which differs from the consistently observed female reading advantage in other parts of the world. Factors that prevent girls from fully attending and participating in school such as domestic responsibilities and hostile school environments explain part of the female disadvantage in reading, indicating that households and schools need to ensure that girls can attend and participate fully in their classes without distractions or fear.

Purpose: For professional sustainability work, graduates need to be able to work in teams and collaborate with stakeholders; in other words, they need to have developed interpersonal competence. There is growing evidence that project-based sustainability courses facilitate interpersonal competence development. However, research so far has focused on single case studies and on assessing learning outcomes. The purpose of this study is to deepen the understanding of how graduate students learn interpersonal competence in project-based sustainability courses. Design/methodology/approach: This study adopts a multi-case study approach triangulating observations, semi-structured interviews and focus groups supported by Photovoice method. A comparison of three project-based sustainability courses in graduate programs at universities in the USA, Germany, Switzerland and Spain is conducted to gain generalizable insights on how interpersonal competence can be developed through project-based sustainability courses. Findings: Receiving inputs, experiencing, reflecting and experimenting are four learning processes supportive of interpersonal competence development. Interpersonal attitudes seem to be mostly learned through a combination of experiencing and reflecting, followed by experimenting; not surprisingly, interpersonal knowledge is mostly developed through a combination of receiving inputs, experiencing and (collective) reflection; and interpersonal skills seem to be mostly learned through a combination of receiving inputs and experimenting, or, more directly, experiencing and experimenting. Practical implications: These findings support the unique learning opportunities offered through project-based sustainability courses and can help instructors to better facilitate students' development of interpersonal competence. Originality/value: The value of this study is three-fold--(i) it provides a comprehensive picture of interpersonal competence, including attitudes, knowledge, and skills; (ii) it spells out specific teaching and learning processes; and (iii) it links these to specific interpersonal competence facets and components.

In sub-Saharan Africa over 52 million children are living with the death of one or both parents. Drivers of this parental mortality include afflictions at levels endemic to the region, including: HIV; malaria and other parasites; lower respiratory infections; diarrhoeal illnesses; and road accidents, among others. This paper examines the impact of orphanhood on learning outcomes among girls and boys in sub-Saharan Africa, conditional on school enrolment. By analysing test scores for approximately 60,000 pupils in 12 countries, we estimate the effect on student test scores by comparing paternal, maternal, and double orphans to non-orphans in the sample, specifically for the subjects of reading, mathematics, and HIV-AIDS knowledge. No previous study has analysed how orphanhood might influence learning by using student test score data, making this paper's approach unique in the literature. This study employs two estimation techniques: Coarsened exact matching calculates the sample average treatment effect on the treated, while matching on students' family structure, household wealth, school resources, and geographic location; and double lasso (DL) regression applies applying machine-learning for variable selection with high-dimensional controls for regional and school identifiers, school location, and student age. Our results show both CEM and DL consistently report a significant negative impact of orphanhood on test scores among specific countries, especially those which faltered in addressing the HIV-AIDS crisis.

This research makes use of hierarchical linear modelling to investigate which teacher characteristics are significantly associated with student performance. Using data from the SACMEQ III study of 2007, an interesting and potentially important finding is that younger teachers are better able to improve the mean mathematics performance of their students. Furthermore, younger teachers themselves perform better on subject tests than do their older counterparts. Identical models are run for sub-Saharan countries bordering on South Africa and for Kenya, and the strong relationship between teacher age and student performance is not observed. Similarly, the model is run for South Africa using data from SACMEQ II (conducted in 2002), and the relationship between teacher age and student performance is also not observed. It must be noted that South African teachers were not tested in SACMEQ II, hence it was not possible to observe differences in subject knowledge amongst teachers in different cohorts and it was also not possible to control for teachers' level of subject knowledge when observing the relationship between teacher age and student performance. Changes in teacher education in the late 1990s and early 2000s may explain the difference observed in the later data set in the performance of younger teachers relative to their older counterparts.

In January 1982, the Republic of Seychelles became the first country to make its Creole, Seselwa, an official medium of instruction in its multilingual education system. Overall, this innovative language policy has positively affected student levels of personal motivation and academic success. Nevertheless, the nation's continued use of Creole-mediated multilingual education (CMME) has not been without critics. Chief among them have been the expected purveyors of the CMME policy--teachers. Using a mixed-method survey research design, this study investigated teacher attitudes towards the nation's three official languages: Seselwa, English, and French; and the Seychelles' CMME policy. The overall research result was as sobering as it was clear. Despite the government's 30-year commitment to CMME, the majority of the teachers polled still questioned the efficacy of this policy. Importantly, as this investigation demonstrates, a primary source of this doubt may be found in the teachers' own language profiles. The implications of these research findings for the future of CMME in Seychelles are discussed and recommendations for future investigations of vernacular instruction are presented.

This paper discusses the contributions to this special issue in the context of the African Renaissance and the subsequent need to re-define educational development from a multilingual, multicultural and pan-African perspective. Each contribution offers a different angle to the discussion: a critique of Arabization in Morocco, with questions about whether a new medium of instruction policy will prioritize people's own languages or French; an analysis of urban attitudes in Angola toward a new education policy providing for six mother tongues to be used in lower primary; a description of the challenges for stakeholders in the Seychelles to recognize that Seselwa, a creole, can be an acceptable medium of instruction; and an assessment of the opportunities and limitations in South Africa of classroom trans-languaging between African languages and English. A stronger voice needs to emerge on behalf of African languages and ways of knowing.

This article reviews the literature on trends and practices of recognition of prior learning (RPL) in Africa and internationally with specific reference to some of the key elements of the RPL system, including; purpose; assessment methods; quality assurance; and legislative and regulatory frameworks. In addition, a theoretical foundation of RPL is discussed underpinned by the experiential learning theory principles with a brief description of other learning theories related to RPL. The article also discusses the trends and practices of RPL in African countries with an established RPL system. The key finding of the literature review was that there are different conceptions of RPL globally but which all have a similar purpose, that is, economic benefit. Africa has a different take on RPL. A portfolio of evidence is the most commonly used method of assessment both internationally and in Africa with an increased use of e-portfolios internationally. A variety of quality assurance methods are used which differ from country to country but are similar to the Council for Adult and Experiential Learning (CAEL) quality standards which have been in use for many decades in the United States (US) since the inception of RPL. There are discrepancies in terms of legislative and regulatory frameworks. Some countries in Africa and internationally have no formal legislative and regulatory frameworks for RPL despite providing RPL services for years or decades. South Africa and Mauritius boast standardised and regulated RPL systems as do other developed countries such as New Zealand.

This paper provides an outline of the development and trialling during 2004 of the Literature Study Programme (LSP), a literature programme designed for use in the junior secondary classes of Seychelles. The programme was developed as a teaching and learning component concerned with the study of literature within the English language programme in the Seychelles, which had been hitherto absent in both the enacted and intended English language curriculum of the country. This paper reports on the structure and organisation of the LSP, its design philosophy, the assessment procedures employed, the results of the evaluation, and the implications for teaching literature at the junior secondary level in Seychelles. The results of the evaluation show a high level of support for literature as an area of study by both students and teachers. The programme as an initial design for teaching literature has also received a high level of approval from participants. Recommendations for the programme are also highlighted in this paper. The writer concludes with a word of caution against relegating literature study to the background. (Contains 1 footnote.)

A typical definition of distance education is the delivery of instruction in a format that separates the teacher and learner, often both in time and space. It tends to be an umbrella term that may encompass more specific forms of education such as distributed learning, independent study, correspondence education, satellite education, etc. This article describes a distance education approach that has been developed and implemented in Mauritius, Seychelles, and Botswana to help overcome limited teacher training opportunities and so help meet the demand for well-qualified technology teachers. It outlines the principles of course design, the mixed mode of delivery, and some of the issues of course delivery derived from program evaluations. (Contains 1 table.)

Background: While obesity continues to rise globally, the associations between body size, gender, and socioeconomic status (SES) seem to vary in different populations, and little is known on the contribution of perceived ideal body size in the social disparity of obesity in African countries. Purpose: We examined the gender and socioeconomic patterns of body mass index (BMI) and perceived ideal body size in the Seychelles, a middle-income small island state in the African region. We also assessed the potential role of perceived ideal body size as a mediator for the gender-specific association between SES and BMI. Method: A population-based survey of 1,240 adults aged 25 to 64 years conducted in December 2013. Participants' BMI was calculated based on measured weight and height; ideal body size was assessed using a nine-silhouette instrument. Three SES indicators were considered: income, education, and occupation. Results: BMI and perceived ideal body size were both higher among men of higher versus lower SES (p < 0.001) but lower among women of higher versus lower SES (p < 0.001), irrespective of the SES indicator used. Multivariate analysis showed a strong and direct association between perceived ideal body size and BMI in both men and women (p < 0.001) and was consistent with a potential mediating role of perceived ideal body size in the gender-specific associations between SES and BMI. Conclusion: Our study emphasizes the importance of gender and socioeconomic differences in BMI and ideal body size and suggests that public health interventions that promote perception of healthy weight could help mitigate SES-related disparities in BMI.

The inclusion of children with disability in regular classroom settings has been identified worldwide as crucial to the provision of effective education for all children and to the creation of more inclusive societies. To this end there has been significant focus on pre-service and in-service teacher education to ensure that teachers are adequately prepared to teach in inclusive classrooms. When delivering a unit on inclusive education in the Seychelles, which was developed in Australia, we considered it essential to determine the suitability of the unit in supporting Seychellois teachers to teach inclusively. Teachers' attitudes and beliefs about people with disability are two aspects that have consistently been shown to impact on a teacher's willingness to include children with disability. Therefore, the Seychellois teachers were asked to complete questionnaires in the first and final weeks of the semester in which the teachers undertook the unit. The two sets of responses were analysed to determine significance and effect sizes of any change in attitudes and beliefs. Data revealed that the Seychellois teachers reported more positive attitudes and beliefs about the inclusion of children with disability in regular classrooms after completing the unit, suggesting that the unit of study was suitable for the Seychellois context.

School-based improvement programs represent a core strategy in improving education because they can leverage pre-existing social and organizational structures to promote coordinated and comprehensive change across multiple facets of schooling. School-based programs are generally designed to be implemented by intact schools/districts, frequently making it infeasible or atheoretical to assign students within the same school to different conditions while ensuring study validity. Rather, studies frequently assign intact schools/districts to treatment conditions to accommodate the multilevel structure of schooling and the theory of action underlying many school-based programs. In planning such studies, effective and efficient design requires plausible values of the variance partition coefficients and the variance explained by covariates during the design stage. Using representative samples of each country, we develop empirical estimates of design parameters within and across 15 countries that are intended to inform and facilitate the efficient design of multisite cluster-randomized studies of school improvement in sub-Saharan Africa.

This article explores the context and experiences of three beginning teachers in their effort to improve their teaching and to implement and align themselves with their schools' expectations of effective teaching practices. Research findings emerging from a sociocultural-ethnographic framework revealed that participants challenged their own beliefs about effective teaching practices in aligning themselves with their schools' expectations. In complying with routine expectations, they embraced predominantly teacher-centred practices, rather than a student-centred approach. Given the ongoing effort to augment the quality of education in the Seychelles, beginning teachers' implementation of and access to evidenced-based practices could be recognised as part of this endeavour.

Education has become a "commodity" widely tradable on the international market. This has resulted in the sector being subjected to multinational as well as global priorities and agreements. This paper looks at the opportunities and risks of international trade liberalisation moves in the high education sector on member countries of the Southern Africa Development Community (SADC). An analysis of tertiary education supply and demand conditions in the member countries as well as levels of involvement in international trade in education services was done. The world's major players in this trade were also identified and their higher education supply and demand conditions analysed. The findings shows that promotion of international trade in the sector through trade liberalisation measures in general would help provide more access opportunities for such services to students from the SADC region bearing in mind current capacity problems. However, this potential advantage can be eroded if member countries open up markets without ensuring that mechanisms are in place for international players to help in contributing to the achievement of domestic educational goals and not just their own profit motives. (Contains 5 tables.)

In 1976, the Seychelles government made Creole its third official language, alongside French and English. Although Creole is the native language for most Seychellois, this language policy change has remained contentious. While some have hailed it as essential to democracy, others have condemned it for widening the nation's socioeconomic divide. After describing the Seychelles' modern demography and trilingual policies, details surrounding this controversy are presented. The socioeconomic pressures facing the nation's official languages are explored. The policy issues raised help shed light on Creole-speakers, a group whose interests are often overlooked in language planning discussions for minority empowerment. (Contains 1 table, 1 figure and 13 notes.)

The Seychelles, one of Britain's more remote Indian Ocean colonies, long suffered a totally inadequate system of schooling based mainly on the Roman Catholic mission. This article traces how education policy was challenged in the 1930s and changed in the 1940s. Emphasis is placed on the decisive role of the colonial governor in initiating and implementing a change in policy and the absence of any sense of overriding direction and control emanating from Whitehall. A combined list of notes and references is included.

The aim of this population-based survey was to compare the prevalence of selected risk behaviors between students present or absent on the day of a school-based survey. The study population was a representative sample of all students of secondary schools in the Seychelles (Indian Ocean). Students absent on the day of the survey were traced and requested to complete the same self-administered questionnaire as did present students. Self-reported consumption of cigarettes, alcohol, and marijuana were measured. Of the sample of 1453 eligible students aged 11 to 17 years, 1321 "present students" completed the survey (90.9% participation), 11 refused to answer all questions, and 121 were not present at school. We could trace 105 of the 121 students not present at school on the survey day ("absent students"), and all of them completed the questionnaire over the next 4 weeks. The prevalence of risk behaviors was significantly higher in absent than present students for current smoking and drinking. Inclusion of data from the absent students resulted in a relative increase in the prevalence of the considered behaviors by 3% to 8% as compared to data based on present students only. In conclusion, the prevalence of risk behaviors was higher in absent than present students. Adjusting for data of absent students increased the prevalence estimates in the base population.

Provides an overview of the educational program of the Seychelles and focuses on an evaluation of the final phase (P7-P9) of the nine-year school program. Reports how findings from content analyses of materials, teacher and student interviews, and student test results were used to develop the new Seychelles Integrated Science program. (ML)

Traces the 1977 Seychelles revolution and its resultant democracy, emphasizing the availability of health education, recreation, and welfare for all Seychelles children. It is advocated that this national response to children's needs identify Seychelles as an example to developed and developing nations of the world. (DST)

When non‐native species invade ecosystems, coevolved plant–animal interactions and associated ecological functions are altered, often to the detriment of local biodiversity. While mutualistic interactions can benefit from—and assist with—ecological restoration through the removal of non‐native species, community‐level changes in antagonistic interactions due to restoration are less well understood. Insect seed predators provide important ecosystem functions, but can also have antagonistic effects through pre‐dispersal seed predation which can cause fruit abortion or premature fruit drop, potentially affecting plant community composition.Here, we used a network approach and data on trophic interactions from a large‐scale field experiment to investigate the differences in insect seed predator communities between native restored sites (where non‐native plants were removed) and unrestored sites dominated by non‐native plants on the island of Mahé, Seychelles.Restored sites contained more individuals and species of seed predators (up by 81% and 50% respectively), and experienced a greater predation intensity (1.06 ± 0.53 vs. 0.27 ± 0.09), and predator specialisation compared to unrestored sites. The proportion of predated samples was similar between treatments (~14%). Beta diversity, measured as species and interaction turnover, increased at restored sites.Synthesis and applications: Our findings imply that vegetation restoration generates marked biodiversity benefits on native seed predator communities and their interactions. However, removing non‐native plants did not result in the elimination of non‐native seed predators, which might require targeted control measures. Our results highlight the importance of considering the effects of restoration on antagonistic interactions, in addition to those reported for pollination and seed dispersal services. Management practices should aim to control plant invasions for the conservation of native plant communities that serve as resources and refugia both for mutualists (e.g., seed dispersers and pollinators) and native insect seed‐predator antagonists, both of which benefit native ecosystem function. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The over‐exploitation of wild birds and the products derived from them can be a key threat driving changes in bird species richness and abundance. However, inadequate information on harvest levels combined with irregular population monitoring often means that the role of harvesting in population decline is difficult to quantify. Historically, the pan‐tropical Sooty Tern Onychoprion fuscatus has been subjected to extensive egg harvesting, yet the role of sustained harvesting in population change and future population viability remains unclear. In this study, we used published and new estimates of key demographic rates for a large, harvested Sooty Tern population in Seychelles, western Indian Ocean, to run a series of population viability analyses. We retrospectively assess the impact of historical levels of egg harvesting, and also predict how this population may respond under different future harvesting regimes, assuming no additional environmental change. We provide evidence that egg harvesting has played a substantial role in driving the population decline of Sooty Terns to date and demonstrate that continued harvesting will probably lead to further, possibly dramatic, declines in population size. These results indicate that recent levels of egg harvesting in Seychelles are not sustainable. We also show that the life‐history strategy of Sooty Terns, including a delayed age of first breeding, means the current 2‐year local moratorium on egg harvesting is unlikely to generate an observable population‐level response in Seychelles. Instead, we recommend that the current moratorium is extended at least beyond the age of first breeding (i.e. 5 years) to support appropriate evaluation. We additionally show that harvesting Sooty Tern eggs at much lower levels, i.e. 10% of the population size, is unlikely to reverse population decline. Therefore, long‐term egg harvesting strategies require careful evaluation to maintain a balance between the social, commercial, cultural and biodiversity significance of Sooty Terns in Seychelles. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the years prior to legal emancipation, British officials enacted a series of laws intended to ameliorate the condition of those held in slavery in their colonies. This article investigates the impact of amelioration on the islands of the Seychelles immediately prior to emancipation. While the legal changes, including the dispatch of a Protector of Slaves to the Seychelles, were limited in terms of effectiveness, their implementation offered people new avenues to protest mistreatment and engage directly with the language of abolition. Reports filed by the protector highlight people's uncertainty and isolation during the years leading up to emancipation. While there is evidence of resistance through uprisings, desertions, and the filing of formal complaints, people in the Seychelles faced significant challenges as owners used the islands' distance from colonial oversight to maintain control through violence and patriarchal structures of domination. As remote 'island laboratories', however, the islands offer unique insights into the ways in which people managed to leverage British abolitionism to their advantage even on such isolated islands. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To maximise energy efficiency, manta ray (Mobula alfredi, M. birostris) foraging and cleaning behaviours are thought to often be mutually exclusive, whereby individuals will only forage when prey density thresholds are met and will only clean when foraging is too energetically costly (i.e., thresholds are not met). Here, snorkel surveys and remote camera cleaning station footage show reef manta rays (M. alfredi) undertaking repetitive and short-term movements between surface-feeding and cleaning station visits around D'Arros Island, Seychelles. These observations demonstrate that foraging and cleaning behaviours are not mutually exclusive even when prey densities are high. At D'Arros Island, the proximity of cleaning stations to highly productive foraging areas may afford individuals the opportunity to undertake non-foraging activity without incurring significant energy loss from the shifts in behaviour. These data inform a more nuanced understanding of this species' use of key habitats. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The tropical southwest Indian Ocean is a coral biodiversity hotspot, with remote reefs physically connected by larval dispersal through eddies and a complex set of equatorial and boundary currents. Based on multidecadal, 2 km resolution hydrodynamic and larval dispersal models that incorporate temporal variability in dispersal, we find that powerful zonal currents, current bifurcations, and geographic isolation act as leaky dispersal barriers, partitioning the southwest Indian Ocean into clusters of reefs that tend to consistently retain larvae, and therefore gene flow, over many generations. Whilst exceptionally remote, the Chagos Archipelago can broadcast (and receive) considerable numbers of larvae to (and from) reefs across the wider southwest Indian Ocean, most significantly exchanging larvae with the Inner Islands of Seychelles, but also the Mozambique Channel region. Considering multi-generational dispersal indicates that most coral populations in the southwest Indian Ocean are physically connected within a few hundred steps of dispersal. These results suggest that regional biogeography and population structure can be largely attributed to geologically recent patterns of larval dispersal, although some notable discrepancies indicate that palaeogeography and environmental suitability also play an important role. The model output and connectivity matrices are available in full and will provide useful physical context to regional biogeography and connectivity studies, as well as supporting marine spatial planning efforts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The visual field of a bird defines the amount of information that can be extracted from the environment around it, using the eyes. Previous visual field research has left large phylogenetic gaps, where tropical bird species have been comparatively understudied. Using the ophthalmoscopic technique, we measured the visual fields of seven tropical seabird species, to understand what are the primary determinants of their visual fields. The visual field topographies of the seven seabird species were relatively similar, despite the two groups of Terns (Laridae) and Shearwaters (Procellariidae) being phylogenetically distant. We propose this similarity is due to their largely similar foraging ecology. These findings support previous research that foraging ecology rather than relatedness is the key determining factor behind a bird's visual field topography. Some bird species were identified to have more limited binocular fields, such as Brown Noddies (Anous stolidus) where binocularity onsets lower down within the visual field, resulting in a larger blind area about the head. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Seychelles magpie‐robin's (SMR) five island populations exhibit some of the lowest recorded levels of genetic diversity among endangered birds, and high levels of inbreeding. These populations collapsed during the 20th century, and the species was listed as Critically Endangered in the IUCN Red List in 1994. An assisted translocation‐for‐recovery program initiated in the 1990s increased the number of mature individuals, resulting in its downlisting to Endangered in 2005. Here, we explore the temporal genomic erosion of the SMR based on a dataset of 201 re‐sequenced whole genomes that span the past ~150 years. Our sample set includes individuals that predate the bottleneck by up to 100 years, as well as individuals from contemporary populations established during the species recovery program. Despite the SMR's recent demographic recovery, our data reveal a marked increase in both the genetic load and realized load in the extant populations when compared to the historical samples. Conservation management may have reduced the intensity of selection by increasing juvenile survival and relaxing intraspecific competition between individuals, resulting in the accumulation of loss‐of‐function mutations (i.e. severely deleterious variants) in the rapidly recovering population. In addition, we found a 3‐fold decrease in genetic diversity between temporal samples. While the low genetic diversity in modern populations may limit the species' adaptability to future environmental changes, future conservation efforts (including IUCN assessments) may also need to assess the threats posed by their high genetic load. Our computer simulations highlight the value of translocations for genetic rescue and show how this could halt genomic erosion in threatened species such as the SMR. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]