When the seminal book I Write What I Like by the late Black Consciousness leader Steve Biko was published in 1978, it wasn’t about individual self-expression or self-indulgence. It was a political statement with its origins in the work of Brazilian adult literacy activist Paulo Freire. Freire identified the profound connection between reading, understanding the world and so being able to change it. Half a century after Biko was murdered by the apartheid state, his country is no nearer being able to do this. Instead, many of SA’s children are struggling to read. This was revealed in the results of the international Pirls 2016 literacy tests on nearly 13,000 South African schoolchildren. The study showed that 78% of grade 4 children cannot read for meaning in any language. SA scored last of the 50 countries tested. Also worrying was that there were no signs of improvement over the past five years. For boys the situation may have worsened. A few weeks before these results were released...
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