Programme Director
The Executive Board of Imperial Holdings
The Trustees of Imperial and Ukhamba Community Development Trust
Officials of the Department of Education
School principal and staff
Educators, learners, parents
Distinguished guests
Ladies and gentlemen.
It is a great pleasure to be here today, to celebrate with you this generous donation of a Resource Centre to Zakariyya Park Combined School, John Orr Technical High School and Bilal Combined School.
As the Gauteng Department of Education, we are working hard at turning around the quality of education across all the grades in primary and secondary schools. We are implementing the Gauteng Primary Language and Mathematics Strategy and the Secondary Schools Interventions Programme, both of which focus on language skills as a key lever of education change and improvement in learner performance.
Children in early grades are lagging behind in terms of reading and lack language skills in higher grades. This problem persists in both urban and rural areas. It is sad that some children in the early grades fail to even write their names and that of their school.
Education is a means for enhancing the well-being and quality of life for the entire society. Therefore, the government will seek to create, promote and support the conditions within which quality education, reflected through learner performance, can realise its potential in society.
There is a very important reason why learners, should try to develop their reading skills - Educational researchers have found that there is a strong correlation between reading and academic success. In other words, a learner who is a good reader is more likely to do well in school and pass exams than a student who is a weak reader.
Good readers can understand the individual sentences and the organizational structure of a piece of writing. They can comprehend ideas, follow arguments, and detect implications. They know most of the words in the text already, but they can also determine the meaning of many of the unfamiliar words from the context - failing this, they can use their dictionary effectively to do so. In summary, good readers can extract from the writing what is important for the particular task they are employed in. And they can do it quickly!
Educational researchers have also found a strong correlation between reading and vocabulary knowledge. In other words, students who have a large vocabulary are usually good readers. This is not very surprising, since the best way to acquire a large vocabulary is to read extensively, and if you read extensively you are likely to be or become a good reader!
This donation forms one of the cornerstones of the Secondary School Intervention Programme which aims to improve learners’ language skills and performance across all subjects.
We must understand the fundamental contributions school libraries make to learning outcomes. School library collections, inform, educate, entertain and enrich learners at all levels. When learners are able to explore information that is meaningful to them, they not only learn faster but their literacy skills grow rapidly-they learn how to learn.
A school library that is adequately staffed, resourced and funded can lead to higher learner achievement regardless of the socio-economic or educational levels of the community. Studies have shown that reading enjoyment is a significant factor in improving learner performance not only in literacy, but in science and mathematics as well.
The schools are not the first to benefit from library material. Last year, trolleys containing reading resources in English and African languages were provided to the foundation phase at 832 underperforming school. Each school received 6 trolleys and over 2000 foundation phase teachers were trained to manage and use the resources. District library facilitators monitor the use of the resources.
Concluding remarks
It is in this context, that the department is very grateful to the Imperial and Ukhamba Community Development Trust for this donation that is going to benefit the learners of the selected schools.
I wish three schools, as well as, their school communities, every success with this donation of a resource centre. The success of your individual schools in effectively using this donation would serve as an inspiration to other schools and young people.
Our province and our country needs people with mathematics and science skills, and this school definitely has the potential of producing what we need, and more so with this generous donation such as this library.
About the donation
Imperial and Ukhamba Community Development Trust has to date established Libraries at 6 schools that have been adopted since the inception of the programme in 2005.
The three libraries that have been completed recently, which increases its tally of libraries to 9, and which are to be handed over officially to the Gauteng Department of Education on 19 March 2013 are:
1. Zakariyya Park Combined School
2. John Orr Technical School
3. Bilal Combined School.
Each of our libraries come fully equipped with + 5 000 books, audio visual aids, computers, games etc. The cost of setting up a library is usually between R350 000 to R400 000.00 if suitable premises are available at the school. Where we have to put up structures, an additional R1.8 million has to be added to the cost. Zakariyya Park is a combined school, both primary and high school learners have been catered for, thus increasing the start-up cost to R500 000.00.
Each library is also staffed by The Trust. Our high schools are staffed with one librarian and primary schools with two. This adds R1 000 000.00 per annum to the running costs of the libraries. Each primary school library is also equipped with 1500 graded readers at a cost of R50 000.00.
These books are used during the structured graded reading programme that has been introduced to improve the literacy levels of all learners at the school. Testing in 2012 revealed that the average age of grade three learners moving on to grade 4 was 6.9 years. The reading age should be about 9 years. To encourage non-‐readers to the library, a games library has also been established. Friday afternoons and Saturday mornings have been set aside for this activity. ± 100 learners visit each of the libraries on a Saturday.
Spin offs of the library programme include the establishment of:
1. Book Clubs for the advanced readers
2. Inter school book and general knowledge and newspaper quizzes.
3. Inter school maths 24 competitions etc.
For more information contact the Gauteng Department of Education’s Head of Communication:
Charles Phahlane
Tel: 011 355 1530
Cell: 071 860 4496
