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“Decent” work requires education

Fri, 22 May 2009 09:10

Only the smallest fraction of education budgets in Africa goes to adult literacy programmes. This is despite the fact that literacy is a human right and crucial for economic, social and political growth.

The fact that African economies are increasingly becoming knowledge-based makes it even more urgent that literacy moves up the priority list. Finding work in such an economy becomes increasingly difficult for the illiterate.

One of the Millennium Development Goals (MDG) is to ensure that by 2015 all children will get at least a primary school education. Parallel to that is the commitment to eradicate extreme poverty and find decent work for all – the latter is now a commitment by the newly elected Zuma government.

But it will be difficult to achieve if literacy rates remain where they are. On Africa Day, all countries on the continent should review their education budgets. The amounts spent on adult literacy programmes are pitiful.

For example, only 1% of American aid meant for education goes to literacy programmes.

Projections by UNESCO show that in Sub-Saharan Africa the number of illiterates of 15 years and older will go up from 118.4 million to 131.6 million by 2015 – far off the MDG.

It is not as if African countries are not spending enough on education as a whole. But they are not getting value for their spend. A recent UNESCO report made this clear: fewer than 25% of grade 6 children reached the “desirable” level of reading literacy in South Africa, Botswana, Swaziland and Kenya and fewer than 10% in Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, Uganda and Zambia.

They can hardly expect to find the “decent” work that the Zuma government wants and the MDG expects.

People whose reading skills are not at a “desirable” level are also functionally illiterate and should be added to the figure of some 4,7 million people are totally illiterate (never attended school). It takes time and money to turn the tide of illiteracy around.

“If we do not address the growing number of illiterate or semi-literate adults we will continue to struggle with skills development issues,” predicts Carroll.