Blog Post 2: Child Literacy Crisis in South Africa

In this course, we have often discussed the disparities in representation of diverse children in the literature; however, for this blog post, I wish to discuss the disparity of illiteracy in South Africa. Literacy is the ability to read and write which a child should be able to perform by grade 4 (Farber, 2017). In the Progress in International Reading Literacy Study, South Africa came in dead last out of 50 countries (Farber, 2017). That signifies a problem that needs to be addressed. In a recent government report by the Department of Basic Education, more than half of the nation’s students in grade 3 are not achieving the expected level of performance (Cooper et al., 2015). The impact of illiteracy stretches beyond the walls of a classroom. If children do not learn to read and write at a young age, it can impact their income, is associated with poor child care, poor health, and lower survival rates (Cooper et al., 2015). South Africa’s educational system is not setting their students up for a successful education, career, or health.

South Africa is the rainbow nation (meaning it is very diverse), and there are 11 official languages. From the beginning of school until grade 4, children are taught in their native tongue; however, in grade 4, instruction is switched over to English (Farber, 2017). Reading allows you to read independently which allows you to learn outside of the classroom. At the end of South African high school, students take a national matriculation exam which allows students to graduate and pursue higher education if they choose. This exam is only offered in English and requires reading, writing, and comprehension. Those skills are hard to make up for if they were not mastered in primary school.

South Africa has a large issue on their hands. One possible intervention is an evidence program called “book-sharing” (Cooper et al., 2015). Book-sharing is when the caregiver of a child reads books to their children starting as young as infancy to improve their literacy later in life (Cooper et al., 2015). However, there are many barriers to this intervention. South Africa is a low-income country, so people do not have excess money to spend on books. With the low literacy rates, not all parents are capable of reading to their children. Lastly, there are many languages in South Africa, and there are not many children’s books available in African languages such as Xhosa.

References:

Cooper, P.J., Murrary, L., Tomlinson, M., Valley., Z. (2015). Early literacy in south Africa: the promise of book-shairng. Commonwealth education partnerships.

Farber, T. (2017). Read it and weep: SA kids struggling with literacy. Times Live. Retrieved from https://www.timeslive.co.za/news/south-africa/2017-12-06-read-it-and-weep-sa-kids-struggle-with-literacy/