N Pandor: Launch of National Reading Programme

8 May 2005

A PROGRAMME FOR READING

Programme director
MEC of Education in KwaZulu-Natal, Ms I Cronje
Ambassador Ito of Japan
Deputy Ambassador, Wolter of the Royal Netherlands,
Authors and family representatives,
Learners

Although there are some people who believe that the rapid development of
electronic media is taking us back to a preliterate future in which the art of
reading and writing will be displaced by the spoken word, I am not one of them.
I firmly believe that reading is essential to success now and in the future.
Reading is not about to become obsolete.

We now know a lot about how children learn to read. We know that children
need to practice reading. We know that parents should read to their children
and that children should read to their peers or their parents.

Regrettably, millions of young people do not have access to a wide range of
relevant and suitable reading materials. We have communities without libraries,
schools without storybooks, and parents without the skill to read to their
children.

Various studies in our schools reveal that far too many children cannot
read, write or count at the age-appropriate level. The studies show how
children’s failure to read has a negative effect on their achievement in other
learning areas, such as numeracy and science.

For example, the ongoing Khanyisa programme in Limpopo has revealed that in
primary schools in the project, and I quote:

“Reading skills are very crudely developed, with the dominant reading
practices restricted to children chorusing after the teacher a very limited
number of words and sentences written on the chalkboard. Writing is an equally
rare and restricted practice.”

And the report goes on to emphasise the lack of participation by pupils that
follows. I quote:

“Learning is further inhibited by the timidity of learners in asking
questions of the teacher and in speaking to their peers: in 75% of both
mathematics and English lessons observed learners never asked a question, and
in 64% of mathematics classes and 45% of English classes learners never spoke
to one another.”

In turn, this fails to fulfil our basic education policy goal of teaching
our children how to become inquisitive and creative learners. I quote:

“In these schools children are not being individualised as active learners;
on the contrary, the dominant regulative practice is to socialise learners into
a herd perspective, with little individual curiosity, low intellectual
aspirations and poor reading and writing skills.”

Our policy goal of inquisitive and creative learners is clear: its
implementation is clearly lacking.

The overall empirical evidence is clear: the richer the learning environment
in schools, the better children learn. Where schools have a library or book
collection, an Internet connection or a teacher’ resources centre, learners do
better. Of course, such resources will assist children’s learning only if they
are properly used, but they cannot be used if they are absent.

To address this absence, I am launching the National Reading Programme. The
Reading Programme is a book programme. It begins with three main initiatives
that will put books into schools across the length and breadth of South Africa
in. The first initiative is the provision of 100 fiction books to 5 233 primary
schools in quintiles one, two, and three. The second initiative is the
provision of a set of 40 titles, selected from Africa’s 100 best books of the
20th Century, to 751 Grade nine schools in similar quintiles. And the third
initiative is the provision of 30 mobile library buses for use in areas where
there are no community and public libraries.

There is a shortage of well-written fiction books, in all South African
official languages, appropriate for the foundation and intermediate phases. So
it has been something of a challenge to find appropriate books. But there are
many and we hope that this initiative will go some way towards encouraging our
authors writing for the youth market in all languages to be more creative and
to worry publishers with their manuscripts. Publishers do not need
encouragement in this regard; they just need a sizeable market. The schools
market has been rich pickings for our publishers over the years.

The second initiative is aimed at our secondary schools and aimed at
introducing our older pupils to the rich literature of Africa. As some of you
may know, the list of the Africa’s 100 best books of the 20th Century was
compiled by a jury of 16 eminent academics, authors and scholars from around
the world headed by Professor Njabulo Ndebele and launched at the Zimbabwe
International Book Fair held in 2001.

There are 19 South African authors in the Africa’s 100 best books and some
of the authors in the abbreviated list of 40 titles that we are making
available to schools are here today.

I welcome you and thank you for taking the time to join us.

I would also like to thank Mr Hasunuma and the representatives of Together
Asia and Africa Association for their contribution of four mobile library
units. These units are part of the 30 buses that will be imported by 2007 for a
national roll out of the mobile library in education service. Similarly, I
would also like to thank the Royal Netherlands Embassy for the enormous
contribution towards the purchase of the fiction books for the foundation
phase.

In closing, providing books is only half the battle in improving the basic
reading skills of our children. You can take a horse to water, but you cannot
make it drink, unless you teach it, and we need to teach reading. I have
instructed my department to draw up a national reading strategy so that in the
near future there is a massive improvement in the levels at which our young
pupils read.

I look forward to a “reading war” in which provinces and our leading
literacy NGOs show us the best method of advancing reading skills among our
children.

Issued by: Department of Education
8 May 2006