media releases - The Kha ri Gude Mass Literacy Campaign

The Kha ri Gude Mass Literacy Campaign
The South African Literacy Campaign, launched by Minister Naledi Pandor, is intended to enable 4,7 million adults to become literate between 14 April and the end of 2012. It is through this campaign that the developmental state welcomes new learners to the portals of learning.

Kha ri Gude (Tshivenda for ‘let us learn’) invites adults who missed out on their schooling, and who cannot read or write, to join one of about 20 000 literacy classes that will be held all over South Africa, starting on 14 April. Enabling the right to literacy is one of the greatest gifts that any government can give its people, since it opens so many opportunities for enhanced understandings and, in South Africa, for realizing the benefits brought about by our new democracy.

With only two weeks to go before the first classes take place, the Kha ri Gude Campaign Office wishes to highlight what has happened thus far, and is happening currently, to make sure that classes start rolling out on D-Day –14 April.

Learning materials development
The development of good learner support materials forms the basis of any good education programme and for this reason we have remained focused on ensuring that literacy materials in eleven languages are in place. With the campaign’s emphasis on the development of mother tongue literacy, a team of African language academics, linguists and practitioners was tasked with developing materials in all eleven official languages.

The materials have been developed with both the learner and the volunteer teacher in mind. This has meant that the team had to consider the interests and learning needs of adult learners and to add value in relation to these whilst ensuring that the cultures of the different language groups are mediated through the materials. The writing team was coupled with a team of editors, artists, photographers and layout designers who have worked around the clock to complete the package, which, in addition to the basic literacy course in all eleven official languages, includes maths materials (which are currently being translated into all eleven languages), and materials for teaching spoken functional English. The materials were subjected to comparative field tests to ensure that they compare favourably with materials currently in use in South Africa, and that they are indeed user-friendly for campaign volunteer teachers who may have only minimal training. Another of the innovations of the campaign was the development of detailed lesson plans – 85 in all – that provide step-by-step guidelines for the novice teacher.

Dr Adama Ouane of the UNESCO Institute for Life-long Learning in Hamburg states that South Africa has had the benefit of exposure to best practices from around the world – hence the production of materials of excellence informed by lessons learned from some of the best global practices. Already the Commonwealth of Learning is seeking partnerships to adapt and customize the South African materials for use in other Commonwealth countries. The model for development and the methods for teaching literacy make this a possibility.

Focusing on illiteracy among the disabled
The campaign has a specific focus on ensuring that disabled adults who cannot read or write are given specific attention.

On 26 and 27 April, a workshop will be held at the Protea Hotel in Benoni with 29 organizations from the Disability Alliance. These organizations will meet and will communicate through sign language interpreters and instigators (who provide a medium of communication between deaf and blind learners).

This two-day workshop is aimed at ensuring that member organizations of the disability sector are able to express their needs relative to disability type, and to state what modus operandi will best suit the varying needs of their constituencies. In addition, the workshop will enable the campaign coordinators from the various provinces to meet the organizations and to familiarize themselves with how to interact with the sector, how to identify learners with special needs and how to best serve these needs.

Localized planning
In our endeavours not to impose top-down ways of operating upon these organizations, the Disability Alliance workshop aims to give the disability sub-sectors a platform for stating exactly how they require to be served by the campaign, what assistive learning devices will be needed and to what extent disabled volunteers will need assistance from other volunteers.

Literacy for blind adults
Under the leadership of Dr Maguvhe (seconded to the campaign from the SA Council for the Blind), the DOE materials development team have been adapting the materials so that they can be transcribed into Braille. The adaptations have entailed converting all illustrations into ‘word stories’ so that the teacher can read these to blind learners, and/or eliminating the reliance of the text on artwork. The first three Braille languages will be ready for implementation in the next few weeks.

Setting up the cascade for implementation
With the materials development mostly reaching finalization, it was necessary that the campaign team changed gear and started training ‘master trainers’ for the pilot phase. Approximately 100 master trainers cum coordinators were trained in February. They have been required to set up District Literacy Coordinating Units (DLCUs) in each of the targeted municipalities. All master trainers have had to undertake community stakeholder analyses, and to link with, inter alia, ward committees, traditional structures and the community development workers in their wards. Depending on the type of community, stakeholder committees include representatives from, among others, the homeless, the prison community and the aged. Once again, this participation on the ground averts the imposition of ‘plans’ from above while providing broad parameters for inclusiveness. Depending on the communities and their shape and size, it was necessary to ‘tweak’ the committees to accommodate the functions and on-the-ground exigencies. No two DLCUs look the same, but they will all have broadly common functions, including advisory and monitoring functions and the identification of learners, volunteer teachers and venues for teaching.

Almost all the master trainers drawn into the programme from across the nine provinces have a combination of educator training and community development skills. A majority of them have worked in large-scale literacy programmes and have trained as community development workers (as part of a Presidential-led programme). Using experienced community developers/literacy trainers has assisted in accelerating the process of implementation, since the coordinators bring not only literacy expertise but also knowledge and networks of the communities in which they live and work. Stakeholder and community profiling is, after all, a critical part of the job, as is the building of communities; the achievement of these two competences relies on insight into the needs and problems of targeted communities.

Avoiding cascade dilution
The question usually asked about this kind of mass delivery is: How does one ameliorate the dilution between the top and the bottom of the cascade? Because the materials are developed for the lowest tier and the teachers’ notes direct the lessons, we know from local and global experience that this can go some way towards ensuring quality in the teaching and learning interface. Moreover, the supervisors will support and monitor teachers to ensure some degree of quality. Problems that volunteers might have will be ironed out during their monthly action research meetings, where clusters of volunteers will meet with clusters of supervisors and their coordinators.

And what will be happening this last week of March?
In this week, 54 deaf volunteer trainers will be trained. DEAFSA has identified and screened potential volunteer educators after scouring their databases for matriculated, unemployed deaf volunteers who will be willing and able to teach – and who will, of course, be happy to benefit from the stipend they will receive. The unemployment rate is higher among the disabled and so training and utilizing these ‘unemployed’, mostly young volunteers can give them very valuable working experience. A trained cadre who can teach and mobilize via sign language should be recognized as having a significant contribution to make in South Africa.

Training Braille volunteer educators
Similarly, the Kha ri Gude Unit is about to begin the process of equipping 12 blind master trainers, who will be accompanied by special needs educators, to train up to 200 blind volunteer educators over the next two months. All things going well, the Kha ri Gude Campaign will teach up to 2000 blind Braille illiterates this year.

The specific needs of learners with other disabilities will be focused on after the national meeting of the disability sector on 26 and 27 April.

Ministerial visits
Plans are under way to ensure that Minister Naledi Pandor visits some of the first classes to start up in the Eastern Cape on 15 April, with an itinerary that will include class visits to Umtata, Libode and Tombo, where a huge community celebration will be held.

We invite the media to attend any of the training sessions or the launches in the Eastern Cape. The Kha ri Gude Unit relies on the media to visit classes, to publicize the campaign and to follow and profile learners.

After all, it is not every day that more than 20 000 South Africans offer to serve their fellow South Africans.

Dates and venues in the various provinces are obtainable from Steven at (012) 429 8601 or 082 8820647.

For more information you can contact the newly appointed Campaign CEO, Prof Veronica McKay, at (012) 429 8601 or on her cell 082 882 0648.