Abstract
Globally and across the African continent, the past decade has seen an increase in the commitment to reducing adult illiteracy, inspired among other things by the Education for All (EFA) drive to halve the incidence of illiteracy among adults and youth by 2015. While literacy campaigns were less common during the 1990s, the last decade saw a new impetus for mass adult literacy campaigns as a way of improving national literacy levels. This paper examines the South African endeavour to meet its EFA target through the implementation of the South African Kha Ri Gude Mass Literacy Campaign, which was launched by the South African government in 2008 with the aim of enliterating 4,7 million adults who had little or no education as a result of the apartheid legacy. The Campaign was deemed successful receiving a number of South African awards for best practice and its work in rural and impoverished communities including the international UNESCO Confucius Prize for Literacy (UNESCO 2016). This article focuses on how the campaign utilised action-oriented processes, specifically the methods of participatory action research (PAR), to enhance the achievement of its goals. The methods of PAR were embedded in the campaign structure, comprising clusters of communities of practice (COPs) which provided fora for educators to voice and address challenges. Moreover, since the Campaign was implemented in post-apartheid South Africa, the article shows how the Campaign operations were guided by the ethos of ubuntu as necessary for redress and empowerment.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
Notes
Kha Ri Gude (pronounced [car-ri-goody]) is Tshivenda for “Let us learn”. The decision to use Tshivenda terminology reflects the purpose of accentuating the minority status of the language.
In addition to the UNESCO award, the Kha Ri Gude Campaign has received other national awards for its implementation, including the Pan South African Language Board (PanSALB) award in 2010, which gave recognition to the excellence of the campaign materials in the 11 official South Africa languages. Other awards include the Government Communication and Information System’s Umbungsweti Award (in 2009) for the campaign’s developmental communication and advocacy strategy reaching adults in the most remote and impoverished sites and its efforts to include deaf and blind learners; and the Expanded Public Works Programme (EPWP) award (in 2012) for its effective delivery to the poor and also for job creation through its volunteers (who received stipendiary compensation). The Campaign was formally evaluated by UNICEF in 2009 (Osman 2009), and its assessment strategy and learner assessments are verified by the South African Qualifications Authority each year.
The Campaign strategy and budget were approved by the South African Cabinet (22 August 2007), and Cabinet approved the campaign’s detailed operational plan for implementation (29 November 2007). The Campaign was launched in 2008.
The author of this paper was appointed to lead the campaign within the South African Ministry of Education.
In terms of this equation, practice is distinguishable from praxis. The former denotes habitual or customary, while the latter refers to informed committed action.
Many of the COPs established in metropolitan areas comprised of cross cultural groups where language/ethnic differences tended to be dominant of subordinated by the group. Moreover, across the campaign, foreign nationals also brought with them new cultures requiring to be harmonised in the classrooms. The cross cultural learning nevertheless enriched the learning encounter and was incorporated into the core learner materials to optimise on the benefits of diversity.
The author as Director of the Department of Adult Basic Education managed this component of the SANLI campaign and was able to transfer the human infrastructure to the Kha Ri Gude campaign.
References
Alexander G (1999) Schools as communities: purveyors of democratic values and the cornerstones of a public philosophy. Syst Pract Action Res 12:2 (183-193)
Alidou H, Glanz C (2015) Action research to improve youth and adult literacy: empowering learners in a multilingual world. UNESCO, Hamburg
Aragón A, Glenzer K (2017) Untaming aid through action research: seeking transformative reflective action. Action Res 15(1):3–14
Bleach J (2013) Improving educational aspirations and outcomes through community action research. Educational Action Res 21(2):253–266. https://doi.org/10.1080/09650792.2013.789726
Bradbury H (2016) Enough with Lewin already! Action Res 14(3):237–239
Brydon-Miller M, Greenwood D, Maguire P (2003) Why action research? Action Res 1(1):9–28
Chilisa B (2009) Indigenous African-centered ethics: contesting and complementing dominant models. In: Mertens DM, Ginsberg PE (eds) The handbook of social research ethics. Sage, London, pp 407–426
Chilisa B (2012) Indigenous research methodologies. Sage, London
Chilisa B, Preece J (2005) Research methods for adult educators in Africa. Pearson, Cape Town
Carr W, Kemmis S (1986) Becoming critical: education, knowledge and action research. Falmer, Lewes
DBE (2013) Kha Ri Gude statistical abstract. DBE, Pretoria
DoE (2006) Ministerial committee on literacy. Final report for presentation to Minister GNM Pandor MP, Minister of Education (MCL report). DoE, Pretoria
Freire P (1978) Pedagogy in process: the letters to Guinea-Bissau. Writers and Readers Publishing Cooperative, London
Global Campaign for Education (2005) Writing the wrongs: International benchmarks on adult literacy. Johannesburg: Global Campaign for Education. http://www.campaignforeducation.org/resources/Nov2005/1.%20Writing%20Wrongs%20Literacy%20Benchmarks%20Report.pdf. Retrieved 6 June 2006
Hanemann U (2011) Report to the Minister of the South African Department of Basic Education. Kha Ri Gude literacy campaign, South Africa. (Unpublished document prepared following a UNESCO mission to Pretoria, South Africa)
Hanemann U, McKay V (2015) Lifelong literacy: towards a new agenda. Int Rev Educ 61:265–272. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11159-015-9497-6
Ison R, Blackmore C, Collins K, Holwell S, Iaquinto B (2014) Insights into operationalizing communities of practice from SSM-based inquiry processes. Syst Pract Action Res 27:91–113
Kemmis S, McTaggart R (1988) Action research in education. Deakin University Press, Geelong
Kemmis S (2009) Action research as a practice-based practice. Educ Action Res 17(3):463–474. https://doi.org/10.1080/09650790903093284
Kemmis S, McTaggart R, Nixon R (2014) The action research planner: doing critical participatory action research. Springer, Singapore
Letseka M (2016) The amalgamation of traditional African values and liberal democratic values in South Africa: Implications for conceptions of education. Unpublished thesis submitted for the degree of Doctor of Education. University of South Africa, Pretoria
Lind A (2008) Literacy for all: making a difference. UNESCO-IIEP, Paris. http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0015/001597/159785e.pdf. Retrieved 31 March 2014
McKay VI. (1990) A sociological study of people's education in South Africa: a humanist evaluation. D Litt et Phil thesis Pretoria: University of South Africa
McKay VI (2015) Measuring and monitoring in the South African Kha Ri Gude mass literacy campaign. Int Rev Educ 61:365–397. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11159-015-9495-8.
McKay VI, Romm NRA (1992) People’s education in theoretical perspective. Longman, Cape Town
McKay VI, Romm NRA (2008) A systemic approach to addressing HIV/AIDS in the informal economy in Zambia: Methodological pluralism revisited. Int J Appl Syst Stud 1(4):375–395
McKay VI, Romm NRA (2014) Narratives of agency: The experiences of Braille literacy practitioners in the Kha Ri Gude South African mass literacy campaign. Int J Incl Educ 9(4):435–456
McKay VI, Sekgobela E (2015) Training manual for volunteers in the Kha Ri Gude campaign. DBE, Pretoria
Megowan-Romanowicz C (2010) Inside out: action research from the teacher-researcher perspective. J Sci Teach Educ 21:8 993–1011
Osman A (2009) Evaluation of the Kha Ri Gude South African literacy campaign. United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), New York
Oviawe OJ (2016) How to rediscover the Ubuntu paradigm in education. Int Rev Educ 62:1–10
Rogers A (2005) Training adult literacy educators in develo** countries: background paper prepared for the Education for All Global Monitoring Report 2006, literacy for life. http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0014/001461/146107e.pdf. Retrieved 4 Feb 2017
Somehk B (2006) Action research: a methodology for change and development. Open University Press, New York
Somekh B (2010) The Collaborative Action Research Network: 30 years of agency in develo** educational action research. Educ Action Res 18:1 103–121
Torbet WR (1981) Why educational research has been so uneducational: the case for a new model of social science based on collaborative inquiry. In: Reason P, Rowan J (eds) Human inquiry: a source book of a new paradigm research. Wiley, Chichester, pp 141–152
UNESCO (2000) The Dakar framework for action. Education for all: Meeting our collective commitments. Adopted by the World Education Forum, Dakar, Senegal, 26 to 28 April 2000. UNESCO, Paris
UNESCO (2015) Paris Communiqué on literacy and sustainable societies global meeting on literacy and sustainable societies. UNESCO, Paris, France, 8–9 September.
UNESCO (2016) UNESCO International Literacy Prizes. http://www.unesco.org/uil/litbase/?menu=1. Retrieved 2 Feb 2016
Wenger E (1998) Communities of practice. Learning as a social system, systems thinker, http://www.co-i-l.com/coil/knowledge-garden/cop/lss.shtml
Wenger E (2007) Communities of practice. A brief introduction. Communities of practice http://www.ewenger.com/theory/
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
McKay, V. Through the Eye of a Fly: Action Research as a Support for the South African National Literacy Campaign. Syst Pract Action Res 31, 375–393 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11213-017-9431-x
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11213-017-9431-x