By Thandisizwe Mgudlwa
The Kha Ri Gude (Let Us Learn) Adult Literacy Programme (KGALP) which is an initiative of the Government of South Africa is the winner of the 2016 United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) International Literacy Award.
Kha Ri Gude which means 'Let Us Learn' is Tshivenda, and now facilitated by the Department of Basic Education (DBE), was born in February 2008 after a 2006 study by the Ministerial Committee on Literacy established that about 9.6 million adults or 24% of the entire adult population aged over 15 years were functionally illiterate.
The study noted, "Of these, 4.7 million could not read or write (i.e. had never attended school) while 4.9 million were barely literate having dropped out of formal school before completing primary education.
The study also revealed, "The rate of adult illiteracy was significantly higher in non-white communities and among women, a pattern which partly reflected the negative effect of apartheid-era segregationist policies with regards to the provision of social services including education as well as socio-cultural practices which tend to promote the education of male over female children."
According to SA government the continued prevalence of adult illiteracy and its negative effect on development and social transformation prompted the government of South Africa to institute the Kha Ri KGALP in February 2008.
The 2016 UNESCO Confucius Prize for Literacy Kha Ri Gude Mass Literacy Campaign was handed over at a ceremony held in Paris on Thursday, 8 September 2016.
The Campaign further aims to equip adults above the age of 15 years to become literate and numerate in one of the 11 official languages.
And achieving this goal would enable South Africa to reach its UN: Education For All Commitment made at Dakar in 2000, namely that of halving the country's illiteracy rate by 2015.
With the UNESCO award it shows that South Africa is on the right track.
South Africa could have been miles ahead in its mission of educating all its people if a programme like KGALP was instituted immediately after liberation in 1994.
However, it can not be ignored that since the end of apartheid in 1994, in it's commitments to promote universal access to education and eradicate illiteracy among adults, the SA government had instituted a number of educational programmes like the Adult Basic Education and Training (ABET) programme and the South African National Literacy Initiative (SANLI) in 2000.
With millions of black South Africans deprived of educational opportunities during the apartheid era, the SA government still faces tough battles in the transformation and development of South Africa with high rates of unemployment at over 26% in a country of 55 million people and inequalities threatening the stability of the 22 year old democracy.
Meanwhile, through the campaign recruited volunteers who make up the thousands of community-based coordinators, supervisors and educators are engaged to run the literacy courses every year since KGALP started.
The volunteers teach at community-based learning centres across the South Africa and at informal venues such as local churches, backyards and at times even bus-shelters.