With 95% of South Africans aged 15 years and older now able to read and write, the country has achieved a major literacy milestone. However, Triple E Training’s Training & Development advisor, Marco Maree, cautions that the findings of latest research on South African literacy levels oversimplifies a complex problem which is costing the country’s economy about R119-billion a year.
Maree says that the sceptre of illiteracy still looms large, and that South Africa cannot afford to become complacent. “Intelpoint’s findings that 95% of South African adults are now literate demonstrate the impact that both public- and, especially, private adult literacy programmes have had since democracy. Between 12,9-million and 13-million adults had not completed a basic education in 1994. Of these citizens aged 15 years and older, 7,5-million and 8,5-million adults had an education lower than Grade 7. This is generally used to denote a level of functional literacy, although this is debatable in a modern society in which literacy is now more than just an ability to read, write and compute. Meanwhile, between 2,9-million and 4,2-million South African adults had no education whatsoever. However, equipping the many adults who previously had sub-par or no literacy skills at all with essential foundational knowledge has taken an extraordinary long time. After all of these years, we still have 3,9-million South African adults who are still functionally illiterate. This does not reflect positively on the efficacy of the many state-driven literacy initiatives that were implemented over the years,” Maree says.
Considering the state of adult education in South Africa, he believes that it will also take a long time to transfer foundational skills to the millions of South African adults who are still functionally illiterate. This is notwithstanding the high school dropout rate and glaring literacy skills gaps in workplaces due to a severely stretched basic education system, placing additional pressure on limited resources. The private sector can only accommodate so many learners in its workplace and community training programmes. The less fortunate will have to attend evening state-funded adult education and training (AET) classes.
The South African public adult education system has been aptly described as the dysfunctional stepchild of the education system. Despite the serious need for this service and its importance enshrined in the South African Constitution, adult education has always received an inadequate budget and suffered from a lack of focus. Adult education only got 0,5% of the overall education budget in 1996. It increased slightly to 0,83% in 1999 and has
remained almost unchanged ever since. The private sector has helped to shoulder this responsibility. In the mining industry, for example, AET continues to be a mainstay of its skills development offering. Notably, there has been a steady decline in the number of learners entering these programmes over the years. This indicates that there has been a stable improvement in mining employees’ literacy and numeracy skills levels over the years.
Meanwhile, adult basic education and training centres, now referred to as community education and training centres, are still found wanting. Many do not have suitably qualified lecturers; administration officers; resources; and facilities. These centres are also detached from industry so they do not offer the skills development programmes that will help learners find jobs. Therefore, they still struggle to attract young adult learners, despite high youth unemployment.
In 2022, only 130 752 adults enrolled at CETCs, of which 38,8% were for the General Education and Training Certificate: AET NQF 1. Of the 41 586 students who registered for the course, only 25 315 wrote the exam and a paltry 10 383 passed it. KwaZulu-Natal and Mpumalanga achieved higher completion rates than the national average of 41%.
Another shortcoming of these programmes is their narrow approach to literacy provision. The aim of this training is to transfer only the basics of literacy to a large group of people. As Maree says, a one-size fits all approach can never work. “This is something that we learnt in the 1970s through the limited impact of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization’s Experimental World Literacy programme. It demonstrated that intergovernmental bureaucracy did not have the capacity to tackle a widespread and complex problem such as illiteracy. There is no ‘magic bullet’. Illiteracy is not a technical problem that can be solved with a single straight-forward solution. When government designed its AET programmes, it could have also referred to the limited accomplishments of the Cuban literacy campaign in the 1960s to avoid making similar mistakes. The Cuban government also focused on standardised learning over individual needs. Inadequate follow-up education also undid a lot of the gains made with many learners reverting to illiteracy. This is considering that literacy and language use is a skill that needs to be practiced constantly to be developed and maintained, especially among adults,” he says.
Maree says that an ability to simply read and write is a shallow interpretation of literacy, especially in a digitally connected era. Proper literacy training develops capacity to “crack the
code”. This includes an understanding of what sounds are represented by specific letters or groups thereof, as well as what punctuation marks and conventional design and format of texts signify. This ability to “crack the code” also includes knowledge of graphic symbols to represent various technological and social texts.
Thorough adult literacy training also includes teaching an ability to understand the meanings of and composing expressive text that are appropriate to their context by using selected forms of written language.
Furthermore, it transfers knowledge of the use of texts and other forms of literacy functionally and critically. This includes an understanding of the different social functions of various types of texts and how they are shaped by particular social interests.
While Intelpoint’s research shows an improvement in adult literacy over time, Maree reminds that eight in 10 South African children struggle to read by age. This is according to the 2021 Progress in Reading Literacy Study, which also showed that illiteracy among South African children rose from 78% in 2016 to 81% that year.
Certainly, poverty, inequality and inadequate infrastructure contribute to the situation. However, it is also the way in which literacy is being taught at many schools. As is the case with adult education, children are not being taught how to “crack the code”. The focus is mainly on verbal communication with very little attention given to teaching reading comprehension skills, which includes an ability to make sense of words. Of course, pronunciation, accuracy and fluency are important in reading. However, they have no value without an understanding of what is being conveyed by words.
Triple E Training’s placement assessments have demonstrated that many employees who hold a National Senior Certificate struggle to read for meaning. This means that they are functionally illiterate. As Maree explains, it is difficult for children to catch up if they are falling behind in literacy due to the cumulative nature of learning. Overcrowded classrooms also make it impossible for teachers to help learners who are struggling. These learners are left with gaps in their knowledge and, therefore, struggle with more complex concepts later on, creating a cycle of difficulty.
This is the reason that reading difficulties have also emerged in tertiary education institutions, especially among first-year students who are not learning in their home language. As a result, these students’ academic performance especially in subjects in which a lot of reading is required is hindered.
“Before we begin patting ourselves on the back for a job well done, all stakeholders in the local adult literacy training sector – both public and private, alike – should rather assess the facts more critically to determine where we’re going wrong so that we can address the problem once and for all. Just under 4-million illiterate adults after more than 30 years of democracy cannot be taken lightly,” Maree concludes.