It is the priority of people to make sure that South African children can read fluently by the third grade, Minister of Education Naledi Pandor said on Saturday.
She was speaking at the launch of the Readathon Campaign 2005 at the Apartheid Museum in Johannesburg.
The launch coincided with World Book Day, which was celebrated worldwide.
”And so it is appropriate that we launch the 18th Readathon campaign on the day devoted to a celebration of books,” said Pandor.
This year’s theme is Reading Changes Lives.
”Most of our learners, through no fault of their own, come from homes where there are no books, where parents cannot read nor write, or where parents just do not read,” said Pandor.
She said that without focused interventions, such as Rally to Read and Readathon, the national campaign to promote reading would be the poorer.
”I am told that the reading and writing skills of children in primary schools supported by the Rally to Read project are at least four years ahead of those in other schools,” she added.
Pandor said she is happy that Rally to Read has managed to lobby a large number of businesses to make a contribution towards the development.
”The corporate sector has a special role to play,” she said.
Since the inception of Rally to Read, more than 100 000 children have benefited from this project.
”Furthermore, we need to improve reading and writing in African indigenous languages,” she said.
The minister said her department aims to deepen efforts to reach the thousands of children who do not have access to books or libraries.
”The department is developing a national policy framework for school libraries,” she said.
The policy framework will serve as a guideline for provincial departments of education and for schools in making libraries a workable reality.
Pandor said the department has allocated funds to implement reading programmes that are geared towards children and youth.
This includes providing 100 fiction books to as many primary schools as possible in the next three years, as well as providing a set of Africa’s 100 best books of the 20th century to grade-nine schools in nodal areas and the commemoration of the 50th anniversary of the Freedom Charter through writing competitions.
She called on all schools to participate in the various activities of the Readathon campaign, particularly the writing competitions, ”to develop a pool of young writers who write in our indigenous languages”.
”So, go out and buy or borrow a book, and read to laugh, to dream, to learn, to enjoy the familiar, to explore the unknown,” said Pandor. — Sapa