Address Delivered by Minister Angie Motshekga at the Launch of the Volkswagen Community Trust Flagship Campaign at the PeoplePavilion in Uitenhage, Eastern Cape
“Literacy is a human right”
Programme Director
Dr Danny Jordaan – Executive Mayor of the Nelson Mandela Municipality
Dr. Nicholas Spaull – Education Researcher and Lecturer at Stellenbosch University
Cebo Solombela – Poet, songwriter, storyteller and translator at Sifunda Sonke
Dr. Barbara Matthews – Chairperson of the ICDP Trust
Maurita Glynn Weissenberg – Founder & Executive Director of Shine Literacy
Madoda Ndlakuse – Director of The Eastern Cape Book Festival, poet & author
Connie Ngcaba – Author
Dr. Dave Harrison – CEO of DG Murray Trust
Elinor Sisulu – Chairperson of Puku Children’s Literature Foundation
Dr. Kimberly Porteus – Director of the Nelson Mandela Institute of Education and Rural Development
Dr. Carole Bloch – Director of PRAESA
Prof Di Wilmot – Dean of Education at Rhodes University
Distinguished guests
Ladies and gentlemen
It is my singular honour and privilege to address this important gathering today – the Volkswagen Community Trust Literacy Flagship Campaign. In commemoration of the 25-year anniversary, Volkswagen South Africa has had the presence of mind to launch this flagship campaign aimed at promoting functional literacy in the first 10 years of a child’s life.
Today’s launch coincide with celebrations of the National Book Week, and as I understand, it included a children’s book fair held yesterday involving some 200 young learners from pre-schools around the Uitenhage area. The goal of the Community Trust resonates well with the government ultimate ambition i.e. to work together with all stakeholders to ensure that all children and learners are functionally literate by the time they are ten years old.
It is also noteworthy that this dynamic gathering features a speaking line-up of education researchers, celebrated authors and poets, thought-leaders, senior government officials and early childhood development experts to drive solutions-driven thinking and action. It is through concomitant action of all of us that we can truly build a South Africa that our forebears envisioned.
Similarly, today’s launch occurs during the year when we, as the Department of Basic Education, have upped the ante on the issue of reading and literacy. In July, we launched one of the most ambitious educational initiative since the dawn of democracy, the 1000 School Libraries Campaign. Our plan is to ensure that every year until 2019; we activate and/ or make available 1000 Libraries per annum. At the programme launch, we had wonderful support from the private sector as well as non-governmental organisations. We call upon Volkswagen South Africa to partner with us in this national campaign to make reading fashionable.
Today’s event is important on two fronts, firstly it addresses the fundamental issue of literacy. Secondly, this event is also important because it speaks directly to the core of The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Council (UNESCO) which has declared literacy as a human right, and a tool of personal empowerment. UNESCO further says literacy is a springboard for social and human development. It insists that literacy is at the heart of basic education for all and essential for eradicating poverty, reducing child mortality, curbing population growth, achieving gender equality and ensuring sustainable development. The outcome of a good quality basic education is to equip learners with literacy skills for life and further learning.
The ANC-led Government developmental blueprint, the National Development Plan (NDP) implores us to improve the performance of the South African education system. On top of the NDP policy injunction is that we must improve Literacy, Numeracy/Mathematics and Science outcomes. It further enjoins us to improve learners’ performance in international comparative studies. It calls upon the whole basic education sector to stem the tide of learner drop outs.
Our ultimate prize is to develop individual confidence and enjoyment of reading. Libraries will help to expand learners’ reading choices and to provide opportunities for sharing the reading experience thus supporting reading as a creative activity.
Programme Director; today I want to focus our attention on the need for partnerships in education. When our country adopted the world renowned constitution in 1996, South Africans from all walks of life entered into a social contract to build a new nation, heal divisions of the past and establish a democratic society based on social justice and fundamental human rights. Literacy as we have demonstrated is indeed a fundamental human right.
Therefore, Programme Director, everything that we seek to do as individuals, communities, and organisations – whether public or private – is framed by this national project as dictated by our constitution especially Section 28 that talks directly to rights of the Child. Collaboration between the government and business is central to this national social covenant. Partnership between the government and business requires agreement on common objectives hence the birth of the National Education Collaboration Trust (NECT) on the 16th of July 2013. The NECT is an organisation dedicated to strengthening partnerships among business, civil society, government and labour in order to achieve the education goals of the National Development Plan. It strives both to support and influence the agenda for reform of basic education. To demonstrate our seriousness in this collaboration, in our 2015/16 Budget Vote, we made available over R200 million bringing the total allocation over the over the Medium Term Expenditure Framework (MTEF) to R326 million. This allocation is to support the work of the NECT for a range of programmes that seek to unlock the potential of the basic education sector as a whole. However, we have been overwhelmed by the generous support from the private sector which makes the public funding of the NECT looks like budget for a Sunday Picnic.
Programme Director, it is gratifying to note that since we made a call to make reading/literacy and Library Services a national priority, we have received generous support from the private sector companies beyond those already part of the NECT.
Indeed, we are a country at work. South Africa is a better place today than it was 21 years ago. I want to say the most effective partnerships are where partners not only enrich each other but also find ways where they can mutually benefit. Our partnership with Volkswagen Community Trust fits faultlessly within this framework of a mutually beneficial symbiosis. A mutualistic relationship is when two organisms of different species "work together," each benefiting from the relationship. We therefore owe a debt of gratitude to the bright sparks at Volkswagen who daily work effortlessly to change the lives of those communities in which they work.
I thank you.
