Cape Town – Education Minister Angie Motshekga has urged learners to get used to the culture of reading, saying a reading child is a successful child.
The Minister said this when she was accompanied by Western Cape Education MEC Debbie Schafer to the Masivuke Primary School in Phillipi, in the Western Cape, on Tuesday, to celebrate International Literacy Day.
“Today is Literacy Day … we are in a process of going back to communities, since Mandela Day, on a regular basis to get our provinces and schools to establish libraries.
“Children must have a book that they are reading every month, and parents must ask them what books they are reading; what the book is about and when they are taking it back.
“We must make sure that our children bring our books back to the library; they don’t tear them and they don’t write on them,” she said.
Under the theme “Literacy and Sustainable Societies”, the day underscores the power of literacy to enable people to make choices that promote economic growth, social development and environmental integration.
The Minister said all provinces had their own programmes to celebrate the day and that going forward, the main focus will be to ensure that literacy, reading and promotion of library service will culminate in the department’s “Drop All and Read” campaign, which seeks to ensure that a culture of reading is instilled in not only learners, but parents as well.
“We also would like to encourage parents to get their children to read. All adults must also have a book that they are reading every time,” she said.
The Minister said the Western Cape was one of the provinces that were making strides in ensuring that there are library services available in every school, with a penetration of 68%.
She said the aim was to ensure that there is a library at every school across the country by the year 2019.
When the Minister arrived at the school, she took a children’s book and read a story to the learners and interacted with them on a regular basis, trying to make them guess the next scene.
She later told them that they must aim to read as many books as possible as that would not only improve their literacy; but it will help them be successful with their studies.
“Before you go to bed every night, when you are done with your homework, you must read a book for an hour.
“You must also read during your school holidays after doing all your chores,” she said.
Minister to meet with teacher unions over ANAs
Meanwhile, the Minister said that she would meet with teacher unions to discuss a stance that the union has taken to boycott the department’s Annual National Assessments (ANA).
She said the meeting would be to formally hear the union’s concerns over ANA as the concerns have not been communicated to her except through media reports.
“… we will be meeting with the teacher unions … over a stance that they said they will not supervise ANA so it is to really hear what is the story.
“They also reacted to the announcement that Mandarin [Chinese language] is available in the curriculum. We want to hear what is the problem exactly because Mandarin is the 16th language that is being offered along with other foreign languages on the list, including French and German; so we just want to hear what the story is; just to hear if it is an ideological problem that they have with China … just to really find each other.” – SAnews.gov.za
