EDITORIAL: Time to put proper money into fixing reading crisis
More needs to be done to ensure education programmes are not just pipe dreams
The latest report from the 2030 Reading Panel could not have been timed better. Published a week after the cabinet rejected finance minister Enoch Godongwana’s proposed budget, it casts an unforgiving spotlight on SA’s literacy crisis as the government of national unity debates a new plan.
The report synthesises the latest research on the reading skills of SA’s primary schoolchildren, which are found wanting by every objective measure: the 2021 Progress in International Reading Literacy Study found 78% of grade 4 children could not read for meaning, while the 2022 SA Systemic Evaluation found only 20% of grade 3 learners were reading at or above grade level in their home language...
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