Ithuba in the News
When this project is complete, approximately 2,3 million books will have been distributed to the schools throughout the nine provinces. Now that, by all standards, is massive.
I would like to thank the University of Pretoria, particularly the Faculty of Education, for playing a pivotal role in organising this ceremony. Likewise, many thanks go to USAID and President Ricardo Romo and his team for their commitment and continuous support in the development of literacy material in South Africa.
Today, we are here to recognise the teachers who worked tirelessly during the development of the stories for the project. Altogether 122 author-teachers or teacher-authors or just authors will receive the completion certificates; whilst 18 others will receive the participation certificates. The 18 will, however, receive the completion certificates after the attendance of the third workshop.
Ms Becker told me that ten credits will be awarded for the hours of work completed in the development of storybooks. These credits will count towards further study such as in Advanced Certificate in Education as approved by the Board of Faculty.
This is a tremendous achievement both for the project and the teachers. Language and literacy are at the very heart of personal and collective identity. Yet too many of our children simply do not read at the age-appropriate level.
In this regard, South Africa has to do better in promoting literacy. It is rare to find schools with well resourced libraries. Most classrooms have no books. Most homes have no books. What is even more disturbing is that books in African languages are scarce - so children do not get the opportunity to read in their home languages.
Our collaboration with the University of Texas at San Antonio and USAID in the writing of the ITHUBA story books aims to redress these book and learner material gaps. We have to create a print-rich environment so that our children can be exposed to a wide range of ideas and resources that are written not only in foreign languages, but in their home languages as well. Very recently, I was pleased to receive a publication from the Publishers Association of South Africa entitled Writing in Nine Tongues. This is a collection of literature and reader titles in nine African languages of South Africa. My pleasure was, however short lived - I discovered that there were only 4 000 titles in those nine indigenous languages.
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