Ordinary folk lead reading revolution

The quality of South Africa's primary education is ranked 132nd by the World Economic Forum and, among 62 states, the country is at the bottom in its teaching of maths and science.

That is shocking and requires ordinary people to act urgently, by starting a revolution. But that does not entail overthrowing government. It is about building self-confidence and empowering people to determine their own destinies and demand accountability. Most importantly, it is about mobilising creativity to achieve a common goal.

I asked Brian Wafawarowa , executive director of the Publishers' Association of South Africa, how the industry is responding to the crisis. He said initiatives like Nal'ibali and the Harmony High series are generating new content and broadening South Africa's reading public.

But material distribution remains a stumbling block.

Wafawarowa said: "To ensure the textbooks scandal will be a thing of the past, government and the industry have established a joint monitoring initiative to monitor delivery of learning material to schools."

As such, Nal'ibali is a typical South African innovation - it doesn't pretend to solve our education crisis, but has created a space for people to tackle the issue.

The campaign disseminates multilingual content and aims to establish a network of reading clubs across South Africa.

Since its launch in June this year, Esther Etkin, national campaign manager, said more than 180 reading clubs and programmes have registered with Nal'ibali. More than 25000 supplements have been distributed weekly to 550 schools, non-profit organisations, reading clubs and libraries.

The initiative also has training workshops for volunteers, teachers and caregivers who want to start reading clubs. Almost 800 people attended the workshops this year.

"Workshops entail exploring reading, writing and storytelling strategies to turn any environment into a conducive one for literacy learning. They are about inspiring and supporting community members to start and sustain their own reading clubs, big and small."

Cover2Cover's Harmony High series continues to receive praise from pupils and teachers. The series centres on the lives of teenagers who attend Harmony High, a fictional township school.

The Rattray Foundation, which distributes the books to rural schools in KwaZulu-Natal and monitors their use on behalf of FunDza Literacy Trust, reported that teachers have seen a change in pupils' attitudes to reading. Foundation CEO Ben Henderson said Siyanda High's principal, for example, has noticed "the children are so enthusiastic about the books that they [don't] return them to the library, [but pass] them on. They also sit in the library engrossed in reading".

Henderson congratulated Cover2Cover, noting that "the books have started what we hope will be a revolution". The series has five titles: Broken Promises, Jealous in Jozi, Sugar Daddy, Too Young to Die and Two-Faced Friends.

Morudu is managing director of Cover2Cover. E-mail comments to letters@nalibali.org, or visit: www.facebook.com/nalibaliSA

Books LIVE