Let's read for our kids' sake

The year is 2044. The government of the day establishes a commission of pro-regime so-called "experts" who for some reason believe that they can literally plan the country out of trouble.

The planning commission eventually releases a "diagnostic" report that makes the astounding discovery that "the quality of education for poor black South Africans is sub-standard".

The nation expresses shock at this remarkable finding; the media "talking heads" heap praise on the minister of planning for her remarkable insight.

A few weeks later, the minister of schools releases even more shocking results: our learners from grades 1 through 6 cannot read or do maths; in fact, the national averages in these two areas of learning fall well below 50%.

The minister makes the prophetic statement that she "saw this coming", and adds that, while all the international tests over the past decades showed the same levels of underperformance in the country, "this time we have our very own assessment data".

The media praises the minister's courage in undertaking these homemade tests, free of foreign interference. The nation is breathless about the promise that 50 years after apartheid we now have the data to really, really, really improve our schools.

I am not sure with whom my sense of dismay is greater - the politicians who make-believe we need more data on the dysfunctional school system in order to improve it, or the uncritical citizens who swallow yet another load of official deception that would have us believe that somehow measuring learners (again and again and again) will miraculously lead to better results the next time round in literacy and numeracy.

We know what is wrong in the foundation years of schooling. Too much time is wasted. Too many teachers are absent. Too few principals lead. Too few parents take an active interest in what happens to reading and calculating after school. Too many policies confuse educators. Too much disruption is caused by unions. Too little accountability is demanded by the government that teachers teach and that schools perform. Too many instructors lack the advanced skills for competent teaching in maths and in literature.

The tragedy of these results is not primarily a function of curriculum; we have fiddled and fumbled with the curriculum for 17 years, and the nett result is the same - the children still cannot read and write.

The last thing we need is yet another curriculum "statement" that promises to be better than the previous one; the "new and improved" toothpaste adverts sound more convincing. Ministers have come and gone, each measuring our dilemmas and promising it will be better next time. We remain stuck in the same mess.

It is not only the fact that there is a spectacular lack of imagination in officialdom on how to resolve the problem of low learning achievements in the early years of schooling; it is also the fact that we have come to believe that government can save us. It is time for all of us to do something for the sake of our children.

I am asking you to join me in a campaign in which every Saturday morning, say from 9am to 10am, we organise a reading hour for our primary school children in the nearest library. If there is no library, use a school or community centre. Have the children read to adults. Have adults read to children. Take turns. Find the books by appealing to partners in the private sector. Bring in entertaining readers like Gcina Mhlophe or others in the community. Give prizes for the best reader or the child who reads the most books.

Register your name (Reading Facilitator) and your library (or centre) on the Every-Child-Reading website (details in next week's column). This is a voluntary project and you raise your own resources, but the website will provide ideas and experts on the reading you can access.

I am asking friends in the media - John Robbie, Tim Modise, John Maytham, Karabo Kgoleng, Redi Tlhabi, Jenny Crwys-Williams - and others to encourage reading facilitators and volunteers to get every child reading. I am asking leaders of churches, synagogues, mosques, temples and other faith organisations to organise their believers to run Saturday morning reading classes for children from the most disadvantaged schools.

Let's do it for the sake of all our children.

(This story was provided and used with permission by Timeslive.)