25 Oct 2023

Failing to improve literacy levels robs children of a future Call for urgent action to address instruction in schools SUE MACLENNAN Failing to ensure SA's children can read and understand what they're reading is condemning them to a life without a future. In a damning comparison, Rhodes University vicechancellor Dr Sizwe Mabizela suggested there was little difference between apartheid education's goal of restricting opportunities for black people and the current shocking statistic that only 19% of SA's Grade 4 pupils can read for meaning. Mabizela was the keynote speaker at the Eastern Cape launch of Right to Read at Fikizolo Primary School in Makhanda recently. The campaign is spearheaded by the South African Human Rights Commission SAHRC , which holds that failing to ensure children have the skills needed to understand basic concepts is not just an educational handicap, but a fundamental violation of their constitutional and human rights. Guests were welcomed to the launch by SAHRC commissioner, advocate Andre Guam. In May 2023, minister of basic education Angie Motshekga revealed the statistic from a Progress in International Reading Literacy Study Pirls 2021 that only 19% of SA's Grade 4 pupils could read for meaning. Mabizela pulled no punches. Apartheid was a system to limit the opportunities available to black people, and control their social and political ambition, he noted. "Apartheid education was designed with the express purpose of entrenching and supporting apartheid ideology" he told the audience of teachers, academics, education officials and activists. He said the results of the Pirls study were shocking: "It amounts to condemning the young people of our country to a life without a future, a life with no hope." Reminding his audience that the right to a basic education is set out in Section 29 1 a of the constitution, Mabizela said: "It is therefore not just a social justice matter: it is a constitutional imperative. "The preamble of our constitution speaks of our intention to use it to 'heal the divisions of the past' and 'free the potential of each person'. "Fulfilling the right to a basic education is what unlocks all the other rights enshrined in the constitution." The Legal Resources Centre's Cameron McConnachie said: "It's not like this is a new problem." Referring to the projection that it would take 86 years to correct the deficit, he said: "That's 2108: surely something has to be done!" He said SA was not short on policies, frameworks and strategies that had been developed in the past 20 years to address the reading crisis in the foundation phase. McConnachie referred to the February 2023 document he and Sipumelele Lucwaba of Funda Wande authored, "Moving from inputs to outcomes". Past campaigns and strategies included Drop Everything and Read, Read to Lead, the Early Grade Reading Studies, the 2008 National Reading Strategy the Eastern Cape's Reading Plan 20192023 and the Western Cape Reading Strategy 20202025. Unlike regulations, these were not laws. "They represent what national and provincial governments hope to achieve their good intentions and aspirations with some principles and methods that the state hopes will be used to achieve them. "As excellent as many of these policies may be, they are not binding. "They do not set standards or procedures that must be followed. "There is also a real threat of policy overlap and contradic tion, with multiple role players pushing different policies and interventions." The campaign proposes binding regulations to improve literacy levels as quicldy as possible. "It's our collective responsibility" Mabizela said. He noted the significant social progress in various areas that had been made by civil society entities, such as the Treatment Action Campaign and universally available ARVs, Equal Education and school infrastructure, and the media's role in exposing corruption. McConnachie emphasised that while the campaign sought legal reform as a way to secure children's rights, it recognised this needed the support of the whole community including parents and teachers. The campaign was also intended to be realistic in what it could push for. "We might not be able to make it a rule that every parent spends 30 minutes a day reading to their child, but there are things that can be regulated," McConnachie said. The campaign proposes the regulations include the socalled four T's: time, text, teaching and testing. "Much of this is already there in the department's policies but is not carried out," McConnachie noted. He said the proposed regulations were not intended as a guide to best teaching practice, or another level of bureaucracy, or as a cure for the problem. "This is just one thing that we could adjust in helping to move the dial. "We are also not replacing the good work already done on literacy: this is adding another layer." The Right to Read campaign aims to make earlygrade literacy a national priority through legislative reform and the development of binding regulations for the first three grades. SIZWE NIABIZELA Apartheid education was designed with the express purpose of entrenching and supporting apartheid ideology

Source: Daily Dispatch