During September, various days are commemorated globally, reminding us of the progression and development of society. People located in multiple countries celebrate numerous international days. The objective of acknowledging and celebrating the day is primarily to inform or educate citizens about the progressive strides that have been successful and what still needs to be achieved to develop humanity in pursuit of a better society for us all.
International Literacy Day, World Tourism Day, International Day of Peace, International Day of Sign Languages, World Letter Writing Day, World Samosa Day, and International Day of Charity are all marked in September.
South Africans, too, look forward to Heritage Day celebrations, which acknowledge our unique South African hybrid identities. Heritage Day celebrations have begun to take precedence over the other pertinent days, such as World Literacy Day in South Africa.
Acknowledging World Literacy Day is to inform us of the challenges an illiterate society has within a developing country and to emphasise the value of every person being literate. High illiteracy rates worldwide are detrimental to all societies' social, economic and political development.
Like most developing nations, South Africa has struggled with a stagnating illiteracy rate among our adult population. An illiterate person needs help reading, writing, comprehending, and utilising basic mathematics. In 2021, it was reported that four million adults were still illiterate, despite the various strides by the government to eliminate illiteracy through the facilitation of Adult Basic Education and Training programmes (ABET) nationally.
Despite the girl child being challenged by physiological menstrual cycles and the lack of access to adequate sanitary ware, it has been reported by Statistics SA that there are fewer illiterate females than males. Similarly, there are far more South African females with tertiary educational qualifications than males.
The World Literacy Foundation has reported that the present illiteracy statistics in South Africa cost the country’s economy about R20 billion. But more importantly, ongoing research has revealed that illiteracy has been closely associated with poverty and unemployment.
An individual without adequate or appropriate and relevant skills becomes unemployable and can opt to engage in criminal activities as a means of survival. Similarly, the inability to become educated about various dangerous behaviours, consumption patterns and addictions can negatively impact one’s physical and mental well-being in the short term and long term. Illiterate individuals also face the possibility of becoming socially excluded from society, which can negatively impact one’s identity, self-esteem and ego.
The Reading Panel of 2030 has reported that fewer children in South Africa can understand the context and meaning of what they read. These statistics currently refer to children in Grades 4 to 6 (Stent).
The national reading programme is the Presidential Youth Employment Initiative (PYEI) Educator Assistant Programme. It has been reported that about 30 000 educator assistants were recruited to facilitate and improve the reading skills of foundation-phase children. However, the impact of this programme has been questioned simply because the requisites for assistant educators to be employed in this programme was a pass of 30% after Grade 12 and fluency in the spoken language of the relevant schools.
The Basic Education guidelines of the PYEI do not mention specialised and specific training and or facilitation courses for their recruited educator assistants. This can be problematic as there are various standards of fluency in languages, and the exact level of fluency required still needs to be clarified and uncategorised. It means that there are no national standardised criteria and requisites for an applicant, which will result in children being taught by educators who are not necessarily skilled adequately as language teachers.
This scenario also makes it difficult for a systematic evaluation programme to be implemented in years to come. Only through evaluation can the improvement measures, successes and failures be identified.
Many individuals are also faced with an additional literacy challenge. As we approach the Fourth Industrial Revolution, we are now forced to embrace artificial intelligence and other robotic advanced analytics, and many of us literate individuals can be classified as illiterate to this revolution.
Unfortunately, South Africa is still dealing with a substantial population of those who need to be more literate and digital literate. The concept of digital illiteracy refers to the lack of knowledge and skills of how to operate technological devices such as computers and phones and utilise the various software platforms available for task completion and communication.
The way forward does call for immediate and necessary interventions. Teaching and learning must be facilitated through appropriate education hubs to decrease the number of illiterate South Africans. However, the approach must be systematic, nationally accredited and standardised concerning the educators employed, the teaching curriculum and learning methodologies. This will enable the programmes to be evaluated and measured in regard to the relevancy and labour market demands.
There is a definite need for South Africans and our government to create a great awareness of World Literacy Day in South Africa so that our people can understand the negative impact of illiteracy and the value of developing a literate society. The lack of awareness can prolong much-needed interventions, which can only underplay illiteracy’s social and economic effects.
Dr Sheetal Bhoola has a PhD and two Master’s degrees in the social sciences. She is a lecturer, researcher and a freelance writer. Bhoola has been the recipient of awards and academic scholarships throughout her career. Visit www.sheetalbhoola.com.