Brazil shows how to turn around a crisis of illiteracy in the classroom

Too many plans in SA fail because of insufficient consideration of context, capacity and capability

In 2023, the Progress in International Reading Literacy Study (Pirls) showed that 81% of 10-year-olds in SA could not read for meaning. That four out of every five children in our country cannot read after five years of formal schooling is an unmitigated disaster, a national crisis. The Reading Panel 2030 was convened in 2022 and has advocated for a complete overhaul of the education system to prioritise the effective teaching and learning of reading. While good progress is being made in pockets, our country needs a clear strategy, underpinned by budget and supported with rigorous measurement and accountability, if every child is going to learn to read.

Ivo Gomes, mayor of Sobral in Brazil, presented at the Reading Panel conference in February. Under his leadership, Sobral shot up from 1,390 in the municipal rankings to number one in eight years, with 100% of children literate for the past three years. How did they do it?

To fully appreciate the dramatic turnaround we need to go back to 1997, when the newly elected mayor implemented multiple reforms to improve the education system. Enrolment numbers and infrastructure had improved, but children weren’t learning. A diagnostic assessment conducted in 2020 revealed just this, with 48% of secondgraders in Sobral unable to read.

Instead of keeping the results to themselves though, the municipal government shared them with the community and set a goal of 100% literacy for children by the end of the second year of primary school. Just three years later an assessment showed that over 91% of children completing their second year of primary school could read.

A number of reforms were fundamental to this turnaround: setting clear targets, improving management at a school and department level, increasing school autonomy and responsibility, introducing a new pedagogy, training teachers and increasing financial incentives to school staff.

According to Gomes, the most critical reform was the introduction of an externally implemented and moderated standardised reading assessment, conducted biannually. These assessments ensured that the education system was constantly learning, iterating and identifying new ways to improve pupils’ literacy levels.

The situation in SA is dire — 81% of 10-yearolds could not read for meaning in the 2021 Pirls assessment. The number who could not read at all doubled from 13% in 2016 to 26%. Teachers are retiring, enrolments are increasing, budgets are shrinking. There still isn’t a clear national strategy, budget or implementation plan in place yet.

When it was set up the Reading Panel 2030 made four headline recommendations for a system-wide overhaul to improve reading, consistent with the approach taken in Sobral:

● Implement a universal standardised assessment of reading at primary school level;

● Move beyond slogans and symbolic campaigns to a costed and budgeted plan to fix the reading crisis in the country;

● Provide a standard minimum set of reading resources to all foundation phase classrooms (grades R-3); and

● Implement a university audit of pre-service teacher education programmes.

So what needs to be done if every child in grade 4 is going to be able to read by 2030? There are pockets of hope. Organisations such as Funda Wande and Zazi iZandi are demonstrating that gains are possible at scale and in communities.

In Limpopo, Funda Wande developed a teacher assistant programme “with the aim of developing a model to effectively select, train and support unemployed youth from the community to assist teachers within a structured programme”. Each teacher on the programme was assigned a teacher assistant for a full year. An evaluation of the programme found that, overall, pupils in schools with Funda Wande teacher assistants are about half a standard deviation ahead of those in the control school.

ALIGNMENT

Zazi iZandi leveraged teacher assistants to build phonological awareness and letter-sound recognition in grade R and 1 classrooms across Limpopo and the Eastern Cape. Teacher assistant stipends were covered by the Basic Education Employment Initiative and Social Employment Fund, with top-up funding from the DG Murray Trust. By the end of grade 1, the proportion of pupils who met the benchmark had increased from 29% to 42%.

Both of these initiatives have the potential for scale, given their close alignment to existing government employment initiatives and excellent materials and content they have provided. In addition, proactive provinces such as the Eastern Cape and Northern Cape are working with partners to implement evidence-based strategies to support teachers and teach reading, with encouraging results. These partners are proving that progress is possible.

But there is a lot more to do if we are going to make sustainable systemic gains.

We need a national plan that is grounded in evidence, and built for the classroom. Too many plans in our country fail because of insufficient consideration of context, capacity and capability. National government has been working on a strategy — we are eagerly anticipating its release, and hope that it is robust, so that civil society and the private sector can align and co-ordinate our efforts to support it.

This strategy will need to be founded on a budget that prioritises the teaching and learning of reading. With the majority of the education budget going to teachers’ salaries and public sector wage increases, it is difficult to see how reading resources, teaching assistants and the implementation of assessments will be prioritised. It is clear that if we are going to allocate sufficient funds for reading, we need to be more efficient with our spending. Tighter accountability and performance-related pay increases would be a tremendous start.

Finally, strategies, budgets and implementation plans need to be supported with clear targets and robust monitoring mechanisms. Number one on the list there need to be low-stakes, standardised, regular assessments that provide diagnostic data to drive teaching and learning. We simply cannot afford to continue to fly blind when it comes to teaching our children to read. Leaders, teachers and parents need up-to-date, valid, accurate and reliable data on their children’s reading performance so that collectively we can learn, iterate and identify new ways to improve literacy.

Although there is a long way to go, the progress is encouraging. It is critical that we develop a contextually relevant and evidence-based national strategy and implementation plan, supported by a budget that prioritises reading and underpinned by standardised assessments that promote analysis, insight and action.

With clear targets, budget and mechanisms in place to monitor progress, the private sector, civil society and government can work together effectively to ensure that every child is able to read, ideally well before the age of 10 years.

● Molver is founding director of Proteus, which works with the government, the private sector and civil society to build stronger, more equitable education systems.