Date: 26/06/2006
Source: Ministry of Education
Title: Pandor: Project Literacy Celebrating Partnerships lunch
Address by the Minister of Education, Naledi Pandor MP, at Project Literacy’s Celebrating Partnerships lunch, Rand Club, Johannesburg
PARTNERSHIPS AND THE CHALLENGE OF ILLITERACY IN SOUTH AFRICA
Mr Andrew Miller and Ms Ruda Landman,
Distinguished guests;
Good afternoon to you all.
Last week world leaders gathered in Johannesburg to discuss the challenges of global leadership in an African context.
Jesse Jackson opened proceedings with the words; “South Africa has gone from disgrace to dignity. Today South Africa is a metaphor of hope. Because you have this massive transformation from ashes to beauty, South Africans are credible as a people, you speak with moral authority around the world.”
A metaphor of hope to many in the world, yes, but there are many in South Africa who have been unable to share in that hope for the future because they are unable to read and write.
We continue to face the challenge of offering opportunities for literacy to all who desire such opportunity. In my 2004 budget speech, I committed myself to working with all Adult Basic Education and Training (ABET) stakeholders and to consolidating government interventions to tackle illiteracy.
A ministerial committee was created to assist the Department in determining the most appropriate responses.
Last week the committee submitted their report to me, a report that contained a plan to eradicate illiteracy and I quote, “to free the potential of our people.”
I am still studying the report and will report on our response soon.
One conviction that is a constant is that our country must do all it can to ensure effective, efficient, responsive, literacy programmes. Project literacy and several organisations have been leaders in the field and I am sure we will draw on these strengths as we map our strategy. Studies on literacy show that the needs and interests of learners in this sector are varied; thus we need to develop flexible programmes curricula and learning tools. We need to have programmes for the urban dweller and others for rural based students; programmes that are village based and others that are city based.
Essentially what we need to do is ensure we do not need to set up a ministerial task team again in 2009. The time has come to tackle illiteracy head on and with committed speed. I have indicated my view that partnerships are vital if we are to succeed. I hope the partners gathered here will be ready to play a role once we have an agreed plan.
The ministerial committee’s report starkly sets out the challenges. Currently there are in South Africa, according to the report, about 4,7 million total illiterates (who have never been to school) and another 4,9 million adults who are functionally illiterate (who dropped out of school before grade seven).
The provinces most affected by illiteracy are KwaZulu-Natal, Eastern Cape and Limpopo. For example, KwaZulu-Natal has 1,1 million adults with no schooling and another one million who are functionally illiterate. Some 19 municipalities have over 100 000 adults with no schooling. The most affected language groups are isiZulu, isiXhosa and sePedi. The distribution of illiterate adults who are disabled follows a similar pattern. Sex differentiation is not as skewed although in 2001 women represented 60 percent of the unschooled.
Project literacy and its partners know the scale of the problem. I look forward to our work together in confronting it directly and in overcoming the legacy of inadequate access to educational opportunity.
I have been particularly impressed by the Cuban education system. I paid Cuba a visit last year and have first hand experience of their schools. Not only did Cuba develop a successful plan for tackling illiteracy, but Cuba now has an enviable record of learner achievement it outscores every Latin American country in international assessments and according to UNESCO many European and Asian ones as well. Illiteracy and schooling are obviously connected. If parents are literate, then there is better support for schooling in the home. Part of the explanation for South Africa’s limited learner attainment, particularly in rural areas lies in our high levels of adult illiteracy.
A new book by Martin Carnoy, Cuba’s Academic Advantage (2006), goes some way towards explaining why Cuba has been so successful. We need to learn from these developing countries where pupils in rural areas learn more than pupils from middle class urban families in other developing countries.
The committee studied Cuba and the export of its literacy programme to other countries, notably Venezuela and New Zealand. The most important thing the committee learned from the Cuban model was the importance of mobilising all spheres and all sectors of government in order to succeed.
The committee was also required to consider the Brazilian national literacy campaign that in the period 1997 to 2003 reached four million youth and adults in Brazil, a plan that received a number of UNESCO and other international awards for its work.
The Brazilian model is a partnership model. Partners fund learners individually or in groups, municipalities provide implementation locations and 370 higher education institutions select and train educators. These higher education institutions are free to choose whatever theories and literacy methods they wish to use provided they remain within the philosophical framework provided by the plan.
So partnerships at all levels of government and society are the way to proceed.
That is what the ministerial committee has observed in those countries that have waged successful literacy campaigns.
It is clear that the challenges in literacy and adult basic education and training are not intractable. The challenges have been overcome in Brazil, in Venezuela, in India and in Cuba. And they can be overcome here.
In closing, I would like to thank project literacy for its contribution to the cause of adult literacy in its 32 years of existence.
I hope that you will continue to form the backbone of our literacy project and that you will continue to sustain the partnerships that you have developed over those years.
Thank you!
Issued by: Ministry of Education
26 June 2006
Source: Ministry of Education
Title: Pandor: Project Literacy Celebrating Partnerships lunch
Address by the Minister of Education, Naledi Pandor MP, at Project Literacy’s Celebrating Partnerships lunch, Rand Club, Johannesburg
PARTNERSHIPS AND THE CHALLENGE OF ILLITERACY IN SOUTH AFRICA
Mr Andrew Miller and Ms Ruda Landman,
Distinguished guests;
Good afternoon to you all.
Last week world leaders gathered in Johannesburg to discuss the challenges of global leadership in an African context.
Jesse Jackson opened proceedings with the words; “South Africa has gone from disgrace to dignity. Today South Africa is a metaphor of hope. Because you have this massive transformation from ashes to beauty, South Africans are credible as a people, you speak with moral authority around the world.”
A metaphor of hope to many in the world, yes, but there are many in South Africa who have been unable to share in that hope for the future because they are unable to read and write.
We continue to face the challenge of offering opportunities for literacy to all who desire such opportunity. In my 2004 budget speech, I committed myself to working with all Adult Basic Education and Training (ABET) stakeholders and to consolidating government interventions to tackle illiteracy.
A ministerial committee was created to assist the Department in determining the most appropriate responses.
Last week the committee submitted their report to me, a report that contained a plan to eradicate illiteracy and I quote, “to free the potential of our people.”
I am still studying the report and will report on our response soon.
One conviction that is a constant is that our country must do all it can to ensure effective, efficient, responsive, literacy programmes. Project literacy and several organisations have been leaders in the field and I am sure we will draw on these strengths as we map our strategy. Studies on literacy show that the needs and interests of learners in this sector are varied; thus we need to develop flexible programmes curricula and learning tools. We need to have programmes for the urban dweller and others for rural based students; programmes that are village based and others that are city based.
Essentially what we need to do is ensure we do not need to set up a ministerial task team again in 2009. The time has come to tackle illiteracy head on and with committed speed. I have indicated my view that partnerships are vital if we are to succeed. I hope the partners gathered here will be ready to play a role once we have an agreed plan.
The ministerial committee’s report starkly sets out the challenges. Currently there are in South Africa, according to the report, about 4,7 million total illiterates (who have never been to school) and another 4,9 million adults who are functionally illiterate (who dropped out of school before grade seven).
The provinces most affected by illiteracy are KwaZulu-Natal, Eastern Cape and Limpopo. For example, KwaZulu-Natal has 1,1 million adults with no schooling and another one million who are functionally illiterate. Some 19 municipalities have over 100 000 adults with no schooling. The most affected language groups are isiZulu, isiXhosa and sePedi. The distribution of illiterate adults who are disabled follows a similar pattern. Sex differentiation is not as skewed although in 2001 women represented 60 percent of the unschooled.
Project literacy and its partners know the scale of the problem. I look forward to our work together in confronting it directly and in overcoming the legacy of inadequate access to educational opportunity.
I have been particularly impressed by the Cuban education system. I paid Cuba a visit last year and have first hand experience of their schools. Not only did Cuba develop a successful plan for tackling illiteracy, but Cuba now has an enviable record of learner achievement it outscores every Latin American country in international assessments and according to UNESCO many European and Asian ones as well. Illiteracy and schooling are obviously connected. If parents are literate, then there is better support for schooling in the home. Part of the explanation for South Africa’s limited learner attainment, particularly in rural areas lies in our high levels of adult illiteracy.
A new book by Martin Carnoy, Cuba’s Academic Advantage (2006), goes some way towards explaining why Cuba has been so successful. We need to learn from these developing countries where pupils in rural areas learn more than pupils from middle class urban families in other developing countries.
The committee studied Cuba and the export of its literacy programme to other countries, notably Venezuela and New Zealand. The most important thing the committee learned from the Cuban model was the importance of mobilising all spheres and all sectors of government in order to succeed.
The committee was also required to consider the Brazilian national literacy campaign that in the period 1997 to 2003 reached four million youth and adults in Brazil, a plan that received a number of UNESCO and other international awards for its work.
The Brazilian model is a partnership model. Partners fund learners individually or in groups, municipalities provide implementation locations and 370 higher education institutions select and train educators. These higher education institutions are free to choose whatever theories and literacy methods they wish to use provided they remain within the philosophical framework provided by the plan.
So partnerships at all levels of government and society are the way to proceed.
That is what the ministerial committee has observed in those countries that have waged successful literacy campaigns.
It is clear that the challenges in literacy and adult basic education and training are not intractable. The challenges have been overcome in Brazil, in Venezuela, in India and in Cuba. And they can be overcome here.
In closing, I would like to thank project literacy for its contribution to the cause of adult literacy in its 32 years of existence.
I hope that you will continue to form the backbone of our literacy project and that you will continue to sustain the partnerships that you have developed over those years.
Thank you!
Issued by: Ministry of Education
26 June 2006
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