Ann Eveleth
Minister of Education Kader Asmal is considering expanding his planned national literacy campaign to include a focus on the lack of reading by South Africans – and plans to ask Minister of Finance Trevor Manuel for more money for learning support materials.
Asmal’s adviser, Allan Taylor, told a reading sector meeting this week that the cost of salaries had risen from 88% of the educational budget to 93%, leaving few resources for the development and purchase of learner support materials. “We’re going to be asking the Cabinet for about R1- billion more to close the gap,” he said.
The extra money, if approved, would bolster Asmal’s planned national literacy campaign, which Asmal has promised will “break the back of illiteracy” by 2004. Taylor said the campaign might also be expanded to become a national literacy and reading campaign, in recognition of the widespread problem of aliteracy.
Aliteracy occurs when people who can read do not do so. For newly literate readers, lack of reading – often due to a lack of relevant reading material – can cause them to forget how to read. “We would like to have a reading component in the literacy campaign from the beginning by making available to people what is available to read so that they see the benefits of reading from the beginning,” Taylor said.
He added that a series of plans to implement Asmal’s June “call to action” on education was expected to be finalised at a meeting of the National Council of Education Ministers on November 29. The plans include a proposal to set up a dedicated national literacy unit, funded by donor support for five years, to focus on South Africa’s estimated backlog of 12,5- million functionally illiterate adults.
Taylor was speaking at a public advisory committee meeting of the Easy Reading for Adults initiative (ERA), which has been lobbying since January for a national decade of reading. He said Asmal supported the focus on reading “in principal”, but added that “before he would approach the president to declare a decade [of reading], he would want to know how it would be sustained”.
ERA’s proposal is based on the recommendations of a 1997 report, funded by the Department of Arts, Culture, Science and Technology, by the now-defunct Book Development Council of South Africa. The report called for transformation of the paper, print, publishing and book distribution industries, as well as policy reforms in the educational and library sectors, to make relevant, affordable books available to all South Africans.
ERA said the targets of the proposed transformation include:
l the pulp and paper industry, where the 98% domination by four companies – Sappi, Mondi, Nampak and Carlton Paper – enables the industry to operate as a cartel, driving the price of paper to just below the cost of imports;
l state purchasing policies, which saw textbook spending reduced from R900- million in 1994 to R150-million in 1998;
l publishers who had failed to effectively market the easy readers they published, and some who pulped thousands of books earlier this year;
l civil society projects, which needed to co-ordinate their efforts after losing substantial funding and capacity since 1994;
l the book distribution industry, where neither of the two dominant private- sector groups had attempted to extend the market to the majority of the population, while public library services were unevenly provided in formerly black communities;
l the adult basic education and training sector, which had been hard hit by the demise of many NGOs and a lack of government resources;
l educators, who do not regard teaching reading proficiency as a core responsibility; and
l the social and economic environment in which the high cost of books and the prevalent attitude that reading is just for educational purposes prevent most people from reading.
ERA co-ordinator Beulah Thumbadoo told the meeting that support for efforts to transform the reading environment was growing, with the Print Media Association (PMA) recently throwing its weight behind the proposal.
PMA representative Estelle du Toit confirmed that the organisation would support the proposal, but added that stakeholders need to discuss how it would be carried forward.
The Gauteng Directorate of Library and Information Services has proposed a five- year national library reading campaign to the Department of Arts, Culture, Science and Technology’s Minmec meeting of the ministers and MECs.
Director Brigitte Hansen said the proposal had gained the support of the Gauteng Cabinet, while the support of the other eight provinces and the national department was being sought.
“We are looking at targeting all age levels from birth, using things like a teen reading month, and a Born to Read campaign with babies,” said Hansen.