The Kha Ri Gude Mass Literacy campaign concluded its second year of the implementation of adult literacy classes in January 2010. During its second year, the campaign enrolled 613 638 adults. These learners, with the 360 000 adults reached by the campaign in 2008, cumulatively mean that South Africa has approximately one million newly literate adults.
By 31 January 2010, all the classes had completed their teaching except for some of the classes for disabled learners and a few of the mainstream classes which began after 1 June 2009. Through smart action during the 2009/10 financial year Kha Ri Gude was able to halve its per capita cost and still provide learners with totally free basic education for six months, with a full set of learning materials, with stationary, a calculator, a bag and tuition at a per capita cost of R680 against a budget allocation of R443 million. This enabled the campaign to exceed its original targeted number of learners.
A significant feature of the Kha Ri Gude campaign is the high completion or survival rate of learners who enrolled. This rate is calculated from the learner attendance registers, monitoring reports as well as from the return rate of the learner assessment portfolios which contain learners’ site based assessments. Each learner is tested continuously over a period of six months and the portfolio is submitted to the campaign head office on completion.
The Kha Ri Gude campaign is unique in its mode of assessing masses of learners. The United Nations Education, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) global report on adult learning and education (2009) refers to the failure of most countries to report on the quality of the learning experience of literacy learners.
Because of the difficulties of assessing learners at mass across thousands of informal learning sites, most countries have tended to use enrolment rates when reporting on literacy achievements. In contrast, the South African literacy campaign is able to report on the progress and the achievement of learning outcomes by its participating learners, thus enabling it to report on the quality of the learning experience and also on completion rates.
International and national statistics show that the current Kha Ri Gude rate of return of learner assessment portfolios of 87.2 percent (which signifies the completion or survival rate) of participating learners is extremely high for a campaign of this magnitude.
While the campaign is expecting further learner assessment portfolios to be returned from across the country, it is possible at this stage to report on those provinces with excellent learner completion rates. The Eastern Cape has the highest completion rate with 98 percent of the enrolled learners “surviving”. They are followed by Limpopo province with a completion rate of 92 percent.
Within the next few weeks, assessment portfolios will be verified by South African Qualifications Authority (SAQA), and the records of successful learners will be uploaded on to SAQA’s national learners’ record base in order for learners to be certificated.
Another significant feature of the campaign is that volunteers who deliver the programmes are paid a stipend. Seventy five percent of the Campaign’s budget allocation is paid in the form of stipends to approximately 40 000 campaign volunteer educators. In this way, Kha Ri Gude contributes to the national drive of poverty alleviation while tackling the problem of illiteracy.
However, in order to ensure quality, this stipend is contingent on volunteers meeting a number of pre-defined criteria. The campaign therefore applies strict measures to ensure that the payment of volunteers at all levels (coordinators, supervisors and educators) is made only after the volunteers have achieved certain quality performance criteria.
The insistence that these volunteer educators adhere to quality delivery criteria is critical for the integrity and accountability of the campaign and forms part of the ongoing monitoring process.
Enquiries:
Granville Whittle
Cell: 072 148 9575
Issued by: Department of Basic Education
17 February 2010
Source: Department of Education (http://www.edcuation.gov.za/)
