Failing to address low levels of reading proficiency among our youth puts realising the SDG goals at grave risk
It’s 8 September 2021: Hundreds of zealous Hillwood Primary learners joined 25 000 learners from other schools across the Cape Flats for a “International Literacy Day big read” to launch Siphokazi Madlingozi’s Yola and the Trusted Crown, a children’s story about navigating the COVID-19 pandemic.
Speaking to the media, Principal of Hillwood Primary, Gavin Alkana, said that the gap in the quality of education provided between the “haves” and “have nots” is still evident in the Lavender Hill community, and it is for that reason that initiatives that encourage reading are so vital in his community.
Now, a year later, with the continued support of the school’s teaching staff, parents and the community, Alkana has successfully inculcated a culture of and love for reading at Hillwood that expands the learners’ knowledge of the world and their vocabulary.
This is but one example of a successful literacy initiative endorsed and supported by a dedicated school leader. Yet, despite the strides made in under-resourced schools like Hillwood, far too many children in South Africa remain without access to the necessary infrastructure and reading resources that will afford them the opportunity to become literacy proficient.
On this International Literacy Day, civil society organisations, governments and active citizens across the globe spotlight the importance of literacy as a tool to overcome learning poverty, and thereby eliminate the scourges of extreme world hunger and monetary poverty.
As outlined by the World Bank and drawing on data developed in coordination with the UNESCO Institute for Statistics, learning poverty is defined as being unable to read and understand a simple text by age 10. This indicator combines schooling and learning indicators: it begins with the share of children who have not achieved minimum reading proficiency (as measured in schools) and adjusts it by the proportion of out-of-school children assumed not to read proficiently.
The same World Bank has continuously emphasised that in literate societies, reading is the kernel of formal education. Parents and other stakeholders in these societies understand that a school’s primary task is to ensure that children can read proficiently, and that failure to acquire reading proficiency hampers a child’s ability to learn throughout their life.
Reading proficiency also serves as a proxy for foundational learning in other subjects, states the World Bank, as the data clearly demonstrates that proficiency rates in reading are highly correlated with proficiency in other subjects. According to a report produced by Netherlands for the World Bank, a country’s reading score on the Progress in International Reading Literacy Study (PIRLS) assessment and its math score – measured by Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) – are almost perfectly correlated.
Here at home, literacy rates are a cause for concern – even years after the release of the 2016 PIRLS results exposed the full extent of our literacy crisis.
The 2019 South Africa Learning poverty policy brief, commissioned by the World Bank Group, puts the oft cited ‘’78% of learners aged 10 cannot read for meaning in any language ‘’ statistic in context.
Benchmarking South Africa’s learning poverty score, the brief places South Africa marginally better at 6.9 percentage points above the Sub-Saharan average, a region with historically low levels of literacy. However, internationally, South Africa falls abysmally short – precisely 50.9 percentage points below the average for upper middle income countries.
Cognisant of this reality, what can actors in education do to nurture a literate youth who go on to become productive adults?
For starters, the World Bank has encouraged countries to follow a two-pronged approach known as the Education Approach. This means that countries should implement short-term reforms that improve service delivery for in-school learners, and simultaneously, make systemic changes to improve how the education system functions over the long term. This includes finding ways to attract and retain good professionals, reform teacher training, reform the management structure of the whole education system and expand infrastructure.
As vociferous proponents of literacy and quality education for all, leading non-profit, Citizen Leader Lab, is playing its part in ensuring that the education system is South Africa is well managed through the establishment of cross-sector collaborations towards strong, effective school leadership. As the managers of our schools and key delivery agents in our education system, school principals are one of the most important drivers of better education outcomes. Academic performance is highly correlated with the abilities and commitment of principals, and as it has been shown, reading proficiency is a precursor to academic achievement.
Through Citizen Leader Lab’s flagship programme, Partners for Possibility, principals like Alkana are given the opportunity to undergo a year of research-proven leadership development while partnered with a leader from South Africa’s burgeoning corporate sector.
The programme equips school principals with the knowledge, skills and personal confidence to create school environments that are conducive to teaching and learning. Much like Alkana’s journey to successful principalship, when school principals gain confidence in their leadership capabilities, they are better equipped to galvanise internal staff and parental and community support to ensure community-specific literacy initiatives flourish for the benefit of its learners.
Former UNESCO Director-General, Irina Bokova, drove home the importance of literacy when she said: ‘’The future of the world starts with the alphabet.’’
Literacy is a fundamental human right that we must honour – lest we risk socially and economically impoverishing an entire generation of youth.
About the author
Zah’Rah Khan heads up the editorial team at Citizen Leader Lab. Her focus areas are education, politics, law and research.
