Of late, there has been much talk of the “digital divide” separating Africa and the industrialised world. African governments and institutions have committed large sums of money to the problem and hardly a week passes when we do not hear of some private donation of computers to a community.
While these efforts are commendable, my concern is that it will hardly matter unless we bridge the “literacy divide” — a subject that seems to receive far less attention these days. Without a high standard of literacy, it won’t matter how many computers sit in our schools.
A culture of reading and literacy is inextricably intertwined with the availability of books, yet the majority of children in Africa have little access to reading material. Too many of our schools do not even have libraries, to say nothing of computers.
The structural adjustment policies in vogue during the Eighties, inspired by the World Bank and International Monetary Fund, not only deepened the poverty of communities across the continent through market liberalisation and elimination of social programmes, they also dramatically reduced access to books, not least through forcing sharp cutbacks for library expenditure.
Even in South Africa, the wealthiest country in Southern Africa, children in marginalised and materially deprived communities have little access to books. Cutbacks in library purchases have had a negative effect on the publishing of children’s books, especially books in indigenous languages, because only a small minority of families in townships and rural areas can afford to buy children’s books. Moreover, few bookshops are willing to stock books in African languages.
Libraries are the biggest purchasers of African-language titles. When library purchases and acquisitions are cut, black communities are doubly deprived because existing libraries cannot stock up on the required volumes of children’s books in African languages, and even if they could, relatively few black communities have access to libraries.
A couple of years ago, I visited some schools in the Lesotho highlands. One was exceptionally well run. The principal was motivated and dynamic and she had clearly inspired staff, students and the community. I was deeply moved when, at the end of our visit, the children formed a semi-circle in the playground and, against the backdrop of the mountains, produced a stirring choral performance comparable to the best I have heard anywhere in the world. This school had no electricity, no telephone and no books. The principal was hoping to get some textbooks, but she had never seen a children’s picture book in Sotho. Her face lit up at the idea that such books existed.
Sadly, a lack of books characterises the majority of schools on this continent and it is likely to get worse as a result of the HIV/Aids pandemic. A 2002 UNAids report estimated that Aids had orphaned more than 15-million children in Africa, 11-million of them in Southern Africa. It is a major challenge for any government to meet the most basic requirements of these orphans. In this context, books are becoming even more of a luxury for the poor than ever before.
How do we ensure that these millions of orphans and children from marginalised communities get access to books? The answer surely lies in a strong library network backed by an equitable book distribution system that ensures that everyone has access to a wide range of reading material, regardless of economic status or geographical location.
One of the most positive developments in the past two years has been the significant increase of purchases of books for reading for school libraries. Credit must be given to Education Minister Naledi Pandor for this important initiative, which has also had a positive impact on local publishing.
The numerous literacy projects in South Africa include the work done by Read and the Centre for the Book. These projects and others like them are run by dedicated people and have made a significant difference. But, their true potential has not been realised because they rely on donor funding, and are often underfunded and under-resourced.
Increased investment in projects such as these would help realise the vast potential for the development of a vibrant South African children’s literature that addresses what early childhood education expert Carole Bloch comments correctly on as “the dearth of original oral material from African language communities which is used, valued and developed in early childhood curricula — be they rhymes, riddles, wordplay, songs or stories”.
We would then be making some headway in addressing the literacy divide.
Elinor Sisulu is the author of Walter and Albertina Sisulu: In our lifetime