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Primary school literacy in SouthernAfrica: African perspectivesKristen H. Perry aa Department of Curriculum and Instruction , University ofKentucky , Lexington, KY, USAPublished online: 17 Aug 2009.
To cite this article: Kristen H. Perry (2008) Primary school literacy in Southern Africa: Africanperspectives, Comparative Education, 44:1, 57-73, DOI: 10.1080/03050060701809433
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Comparative EducationVol. 44, No. 1, February 2008, 57–73
ISSN 0305-0068 print/ISSN 1360-0486 online© 2008 Taylor & FrancisDOI: 10.1080/03050060701809433http://www.informaworld.com
Primary school literacy in Southern Africa: African perspectives
Kristen H. Perry*
Department of Curriculum and Instruction, University of Kentucky, Lexington, KY, USATaylor and FrancisCCED_A_281001.sgm10.1080/03050060701809433Comparative Education0305-0068 (print)/1360-0486 (online)Original Article2008Taylor & Francis441000000February [email protected] This research review examines trends in recent scholarship concerning primary school literacy
instruction in Southern Africa. Past scholarship, particularly that which originated fromwestern researchers, focused on technical or structural issues facing literacy instruction in theregion, such as language of instruction, school conditions, availability of books, and teachertraining. Newer scholarship that has emerged primarily from African researchers focuses moreon sociocultural and sociopolitical issues such as promoting a ‘reading culture’, shapinglanguage policy, and examining literacy as a local social practice. Increasingly, researchersadvocate local, rather than western/northern, solutions to African problems in literacydevelopment and instruction. However, African perspectives are nevertheless influenced bywestern perspectives and agendas, as a result of colonialism, postcolonialism, andglobalisation. Hybrid solutions that combine western and African perspectives therefore maybe important for literacy development in the region.
Literacy development in Africa has received growing scholarly attention, as evidenced by theFirst, Second and Third Pan-African Reading-for-All Conferences, held in Africa in 1999, 2001,and 2003, respectively. More importantly, literacy development in Africa has become a growingconcern for African scholars, who increasingly recognise the inadequacy of western ‘solutions’to constraints in African literacy development and who advocate African solutions for Africanissues. Historically, however, scholars dealing with Africa have focused on the problem of liter-acy development in adult learners; illiteracy among adults has been seen as a major impedimentto national progress in developing nations in Africa (Bhola 1984, 1988; Mundy 1993). Althoughliteracy development in early schooling in Africa has received increased attention from scholars,it is still underrepresented in the scholarly literature. The purpose of this article, therefore, is toreview existing literature concerning primary school literacy in one specific region of that conti-nent, southern Africa, and to illustrate the ways in which this literature reflects trends in globaland comparative education. An important goal of this paper also is to explore literature andperspectives that originate specifically from African researchers; while I do include some westernresearchers in this review, the large majority of sources for this article are texts written by Africanscholars.
This article explores the question: what does the literature, particularly that of African scholars,have to say about primary school literacy in southern Africa? It describes an apparent trend in theliterature away from discussing technical or structural issues (such as the lack of available texts,under-preparation of teachers, and the question of language of instruction – issues which none-theless still present serious constraints to literacy education in Africa) toward greater considerationof social, cultural, and political issues in literacy development and schooling. In this article, I alsoargue that although the literature indeed reflects a greater emphasis on African viewpoints andsolutions for local and regional issues, these cannot be fully separated from western perspectives.
*Email: [email protected]
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Perspectives
Southern Africa
Africa is a wonderfully complex continent – there are 53 countries, with several thousand ethnicgroups and an estimated 1000 languages spoken across the continent (Bhola 1988). Africa alsohas a long and complex political history, and its recent history has been deeply affected by colo-nialism, post-colonialism, and globalisation. Part of western colonialism’s mark on Africa can beseen in the relatively arbitrary division of the continent into regions – north, south, central, westand east. Although these divisions are largely geographic and political, nations within theseregions do tend to exhibit commonalities in languages and cultures, as well as in colonial pasts.Because my own experiences lie in the Southern African kingdom of Lesotho, and because thetask of reviewing the literature pertaining to all of Africa was too large for one article, I limitedthe scope of this article to the region of Southern Africa.
Determining what, exactly, constitutes Southern Africa is a challenge. Different researchershave defined the region in various ways; many have defined ‘Southern Africa’ as the member-states of the Southern African Development Community (SADC). However, using SADC can beproblematic, since the membership of SADC has not remained constant. When H.S. Bhola(1988) used SADC to define Southern Africa, the organisation consisted of nine countries,including Angola, Botswana, Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, Swaziland, Tanzania, Zambia, andZimbabwe. At that time, SADC consisted of countries that were struggling for economic andpolitical survival against the Apartheid regime of South Africa (Bhola 1988). By the time KarenMundy (1993) wrote her review of literacy in Southern Africa, Namibia had gained its indepen-dence from South Africa and had been added to SADC. Today, SADC consists of 14 countries;post-Apartheid South Africa, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Mauritius, and the Seychelleshave since been added to this group. Many of these countries, however, cannot be considered partof Southern Africa, such as the Democratic Republic of Congo (Central Africa), Tanzania (EastAfrica), and the island nations of Mauritius and the Seychelles. Because defining Southern Africaby the member countries of SADC is so problematic, I decided to use the ‘traditional’ definitionof Southern Africa: Angola, Botswana, Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, South Africa,Swaziland, Zambia and Zimbabwe. Geographically, all of these countries are in Southern Africa;linguistically, all but Angola and Mozambique use English as an official language. This changingmembership of SADC, along with the postcolonial linguistic affiliations of these countries,reflects historical and political trends in the region, including globalisation and an increased levelof attention to local and regional issues. These trends have contributed to an increased awarenessof the impact of social, cultural, and political factors on literacy education for Southern Africanchildren.
Literacy and culture
Literacy researchers across the globe have increasingly recognised that literacy is not merely acognitive phenomenon; it is closely linked to social and cultural practice, to power and ideol-ogy (Gee 1996, 2001; Barton and Hamilton 1998, 2001; Cope and Kalantzis 2000; Freire andMacedo 2001; Street 2001a, 2001b). The term ‘literacy’ has been used in multiple ways in theliterature concerning Southern Africa; however, because scholars and policy-makers defineliteracy in many ways, literacy and literacy development can be difficult to evaluate andcompare in a given region. Bhola (1992), for example, defined literacy as the ability to reador write in the mother tongue, a fairly common definition, particularly for those who thinkabout education in the developing world. This definition is far too limiting, especially forSouthern Africa, because it not only fails to acknowledge that many may be able to read and
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write in a colonial language but not in their mother tongue, but also because it does not takeinto account the cultural values, beliefs, and practices that surround literacy. Being literate, aswell as the process of becoming so, is culturally defined (Street 1995; Barton and Hamilton1998, 2001); literacy therefore consists of far more than the simple technical ability to readand write (Alant 1991). Moreover, literacy cannot be considered a singular phenomenon.Because groups vary in how they view and use literacy, Street (1995) suggested that the term‘multiple literacies’ would more accurately reflect the various states of literacy on the ground.The construct of multiple literacies becomes particularly important when considering literacydevelopment and literacy education in the developing world. Street’s (1994) similar conceptof ‘local literacies’ is an important framework for African research in that it recognises themultiple literacies that communities use – literacies which are often overlooked or underval-ued by those in power.
As a phenomenon, literacy is enmeshed in beliefs and values; cultures differ in what theybelieve constitutes texts and literate behaviour, as well as the values they attribute to such textsand behaviours. Street’s framework of multiple literacies acknowledges that clear valuejudgments are attached to different literacies. Certain forms of literacy (such as those attachedto schooling) are highly valued, while other literacies are seen as inferior. Becoming literatetherefore involves internalising assumptions about relationships, status, value, ethnicity,gender, and social class (Prinsloo 2002). Southern African scholars working within this frame-work of literacy as social practice acknowledge that school literacy too often becomes the goldstandard for a narrower view of ‘literacy’, and children who are not adept at school literaciesare marked as somehow culturally deficient or linguistically incompetent (Prinsloo and Bloch1999).
Although the framework of literacy as social practice may be a useful one for understandingand shaping literacy education in Southern Africa, it is important to note that it is nevertheless awestern perspective, largely developed by theorists in Great Britain, the United States, andAustralia. African scholars, particularly those in South Africa, have taken up this framework andmade important contributions to it, but thinking about literacy in the region still is largely guidedby western perspectives.
Literacy, colonialism, and international development
A similar glaring lack of consensus exists about the relationship between education (and, by asso-ciation, literacy), culture, and national development (Emmett 1991). Much of the current litera-ture suggests that literacy is a crucial ingredient for social, economic, and political development(Bhola 1984, 1988, 1990, 1992; Greaney 1996; United Nations 2002). Bhola (1990) argues,however, that developing nations do not always understand the relationship between literacy anddevelopment, resulting in literacy being forced to take a backseat to other national needs. Scholarssuggest that the consequences of illiteracy are clear: illiteracy denies nearly one billion peopleworldwide – most of whom live in developing nations – access to crucial information abouthealth, social, cultural, and political issues (Bhola 1990; Greaney 1996). Greaney (1996) esti-mates that Africa has an overall illiteracy rate of 65%, a percentage that may translate into seriousconsequences for development in the region.
Not all agree on the centrality of literacy to regional development, however. Makina(1991) suggests that it is false to assume that a lack of literacy results in lack of developmentor that the presence of literacy necessarily results in development; many development projectshave been successful without substantial literacy among the participants. Mundy (1993)criticises Bhola’s assessments and also demonstrates that the relationship between develop-ment and literacy is not as clear as many have suggested. She argues that African literacy
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policies may in fact have worsened the position of those nations within the world system.Mundy’s criticism is well worth considering, particularly her assertion that literacy policyhas ignored the ‘probable and potential meanings of literacy in the lives of African people’(1993, 406).
Although literacy likely plays some role in development in southern Africa, it is nonethelessa post-colonial phenomenon that carries post-colonial implications (Bhola 1990; Bokamba 1995).Bokamba (1995) argues that Africans have interpreted national development and progress as‘westernisation’, and they further believe that this progress will only be available if Europeanlanguages are used as the media of instruction in schools and as the media of communication inbusiness and government. Development, education and literacy, therefore, have all been inter-preted through a western, colonial European lens in Africa. Tikly (2001) similarly criticises muchof the literature relating to globalisation and education as having an unnecessarily narrow focuson economic development. He calls for placing traditionally marginalised regions and nations atthe centre of debate, with particular emphasis on the examination of issues of race, culture, class,gender, language, and the impact of European colonialism.
Current literacy levels in Africa have been achieved largely through formal schooling, aninstitution introduced by European colonisers and Christian missionaries (Bhola 1990; Bokamba1995; Daun 2000). Colonial administrators allowed religious missionaries the relative freedom todevelop and implement education in Africa, including the language policies used in education.Although these missionaries sometimes advocated the use of selected African languages inprimary education, they nonetheless developed their educational language policies without signif-icant input from Africans (Bokamba 1995). Europeans therefore controlled language and educa-tion through the imposition of colonial languages of power and through the written developmentof African languages by producing grammars, dictionaries, and other books (Campbell-Makini2000). Pütz (1995) suggests that African policies of using colonial languages backfired, however,leading to problems with educational underdevelopment, discrimination and exploitation basedon linguistic grounds, linguistic and cultural alienation, and unresolved or heightened ethnicconflict related to language.
Others, however, have suggested that the impact of colonial educational systems andlanguages is multi-sided and not always negative. Cooke (1999) notes, for example, that Englishcan be an agent of both exploitation and liberation in the same nation. He cites Henderson(1997), who argued that English was exploitative as a language of power in South Africa, yet theschoolchildren of Soweto viewed it as a liberating language in response to the oppressive use ofAfrikaans in 1976. Cooke (1999) also suggests that English is an important avenue for access toideas and to participation in international discourse. Tikly (2001) likewise suggests that colonialeducation and the English language helped to facilitate African movements for independencefrom colonisers.
Cooke’s treatment of the many roles of English in Africa serves to problematise analready complex discussion of colonial languages. He shows that while English may be auseful tool for liberation, it is still a tool for the powerful and that the teaching of English‘often promotes the interests and values of powerful Northern institutions’ (1999, 418). Notonly is English the agent for institutions such as the International Monetary Fund, the WorldBank, the World Trade Organisation, and the Organisation for Economic Cooperation andDevelopment, but these organisations also control much of the funding available for educa-tional and literacy development in Southern Africa, and they continue to promote the teach-ing of English worldwide (Cooke 1999). Similarly, scholarship concerning literacy in theregion is largely published in English, according to western-derived models of research andpublication – yet another example of the power of western languages and perspectives in theregion.
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African solutions to African problems
African development, both national and educational, has been conceived of in primarily western,colonial terms, but this does not mean that these are the most appropriate terms for development.Even schools which are successfully based upon western-oriented systems can be destructive forAfrican students, communities, and cultures, because they reproduce an ‘alien set of values’(Williams 1996, 18). It is clear that the western, industrially-developed world does not have allof the answers, particularly for Africa, and scholars increasingly recognise that the United Statesand Europe do not provide an appropriate model that Africa should ‘slavishly follow’ to meet itsdevelopment challenges (Christensen 1991, 291).
Scholars from Southern Africa are increasingly calling for locally-developed programmes toaddress the literacy development needs of the region; these scholars argue that western researchersand aid organisations often offer ‘solutions’ to structural issues that are inappropriate for localcontexts. Similarly, Abel (2003) argues that Southern African nations often uncritically acceptworldwide educational influences without considering local contexts. Bamhare (2003, 23), forexample, writes that ‘there are many examples of well-intentioned but misguided models of devel-opment, created externally and imposed on African communities’. Bamhare calls for Africans toharness and develop their own local resources; she suggests this is the only way to ensure sustain-ability of programmes and developments. For Bamhare, developing African-originated solutionsis not only a matter of sustainability and literacy development, it is also a matter of empowerment:‘The actual exercise of identifying and mobilising local resources for development helps to healthe battered psyche and image of the ‘poor, helpless African’ who has to be saved’ (2003, 23).Becoming the subjects, rather than the objects, of development may be an important step forAfricans.
A shift in scholarly focus
There appears to be a shift in scholarly focus in terms of literacy research in Southern Africa overthe last 20 years, perhaps reflecting this increasing call for Africans to identify and address educa-tional issues. Scholarship from South Africa dominated what little literature existed previously(Motala 1995; Williams 1996), although more recent literature appears to represent a broaderdistribution of countries in the region. Earlier scholarship in this area also tended to focus on morestructural or technical constraints to literacy development in the region. This literature high-lighted problems with access to textbooks and other printed material, the shortage of adequatelyprepared teachers in primary schools, and challenges presented by multilingual contexts and theimposition of colonial languages on schooling. More recent research in early literacy and school-ing in Southern Africa, however, appears to be shifting focus from structural constraints to social,cultural, and political issues that affect literacy development in the region. Evidence of this shiftcan be seen in the published proceedings of the First and Second Pan-African Reading-for-AllConferences, held in 1999 and 2001. The proceedings of the first general conference (Manaka2001) present a broad, general overview of literacy issues in Africa. The Second conference,however, was organised around the specific theme ‘Building Communities Where LiteracyThrives’ (Arua 2003). Conferences such as these illustrate the ways in which African scholars aredrawing links between structural problems and social, cultural, and political issues. According toIhron Rensburg of South Africa’s National Department of Education:
We must not be naïve about the power and value of reading. Literacy, of which reading is a part, is apolitically loaded activity. It is not a neutral good which can simply be distributed amongst the peopleand will automatically lead to job opportunities, economic improvement. As an activity, in the sameway as language, it can be used to convey the message of the powerful, the elite, it can be used fordomination and control (Rensburg 2001, 201).
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Unfortunately, South Africa’s own history presents a clear example of the ways in which literacyand education could be used to dominate and control African peoples through Apartheid policiesof separate education for African children.
Scholars concerned with literacy development in Southern Africa traditionally addressedstructural issues of language, text provision, and teacher preparation in their work – indeed, theseissues present serious challenges for literacy development in the region – but they increasinglyappear to be shifting their attention to the ways in which sociocultural and sociopolitical factorsaffect these structural constraints.
Language
The issue of language has received the most attention from scholars in the region, and it is alsothe constraint that is most obviously linked with social, cultural, and political issues. SouthernAfrica is rich with linguistic diversity. For example, there are at least 25 languages spoken inBotswana, which has 2 official languages (Molosiwa 2003); Zambia has 7 official languages outof 31 spoken in that country (Bhola,1992; Campbell-Makini 2000); and South Africa has 11 officiallanguages out of at least 28 that are spoken there (Bhola, 1992). It is clear that literacy programmessimply cannot ignore the language question (Van Dyken 1990; Alant 1991; Bamgbose 2000),because language provides the basis for acquisition of literacy skills. However, it is equally clearthat the language question is not merely pragmatic, but also relates to ethnicity, culture, and power.
At the heart of the matter is the question of language of instruction: should children be taughtin their mother tongues, in a dominant regional language, or in a colonial (European) language?This question is a highly charged, deeply political one, with vocal proponents on each side. VanDyken (1990), for example, argues that low literacy levels in Africa are directly related to thedegree to which local languages have been ignored in favour of international colonial languages.Most researchers do agree that education in the local language is best, at least during the first threeyears of instruction (Hornberger 1994; Robinson 1994; Ferguson 2000). However, using locallanguages for instruction is extremely difficult when so many languages are spoken in such a rela-tively small area, and when there are what Abel (2003, 130) calls ‘complex language scenarios inschools’. For many students, the language of instruction may be a third or even fourth language(Abel 2003). Researchers have noted that children who are required to learn in a language otherthan their mother tongue (typically English) score extremely low on national assessments, largelybecause they are unable to understand their textbooks (Williams 1996; Sampa 2003). Williams(1996) also suggested that the use of English as the preferred language of instruction holds larger,more serious cognitive and academic consequences for African children. He argued that using asecond language for instruction stunts children both academically and cognitively, because theirlimited understanding of that language hinders their access to academic content.
Although research clearly supports the use of local languages as media of instruction, this typeof education may not be feasible in many Southern African contexts. This issue of feasibilityclearly illustrates the interconnected nature of structural constraints, such as lack of funding andavailable resources, with sociopolitical and cultural issues. Many local African languagescurrently are not practical to use in classrooms because no teaching materials exist in thoselanguages, and in some cases, those languages have not even been reduced to writing (Bamgbose2000). Similarly, because producing textbooks and other learning materials in local languagescosts developing nations a great deal, most countries find it much more practical to import educa-tional materials that have already been produced in English (Campbell-Makini 2000). Availabilityof resources is a serious consideration for African language policy, since many countries simplydo not have enough resources to supply either the teachers or the materials that are necessary toprovide local-language education to all children (Robinson 1994). Likewise, practical arguments
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support English as a necessary lingua franca for education in many African countries, particularlyin situations where teachers and students may not speak a common first language (Bloch 1997).Finally, current governments may advocate English-medium instruction partly from the fear thatmoving away from English will isolate the country from the international community, obstructaccess to science and technology, and limit investment and aid from western countries (Ferguson2000) – potentially serious consequences, but not ones that necessarily hold children’s literacylearning interests foremost.
As the last example shows, language policy represents an illustration of the importance ofpolitical forces in shaping literacy in the region. Not only are language policies based on structural-political considerations, such as access to international aid, but they also reflect broader issues ofpower and control – and the ways in which the western world still exerts considerable influenceover literacy education in the region. Bamgbose (2000) suggests that language policies serve apowerful gatekeeping function in Africa; that is, language policies have the power to create twoseparate classes: the included (those who are able to operate easily in the official language, whichprovides access to economic and political power), and the excluded (those who do not enjoy theseadvantages because they do not have access to the language of power). African schools representpowerful linguistic gatekeepers, due to their authority to exclude through high dropout rates, highpercentages of repeaters, and high failure rates in examinations (Bamgbose 2000). Most SouthernAfrican secondary schools are entirely English-medium, and primary schools therefore ‘weed out’students who do not have adequate competence in English (Williams 1996).
English is clearly the language that ‘counts’ in Southern Africa (Nyati-Ramahobo 1994;Luckett 1995; Bloch 1997; Bamgbose 2000; Campbell-Makini 2000; Ferguson 2000; Prinsloo2002). Part of the reason for the high status of English may be due to Southern Africans’ beliefthat English provides them with better access to jobs and the global economy. For example, onestudy among 18 primary schools in Botswana found that the majority of students preferred to useEnglish as the medium of instruction because English would allow them to get jobs and speak toforeigners. These students did not believe that Setswana, their local language, was a language ofupward mobility (Nyati-Ramahobo 1994). Many parents and communities likewise feel thatEnglish-medium instruction is essential for entry into the job market or into higher education(Peirce and Ridge 1997). People in the region often believe that the quality of education inEnglish is superior to that available in local languages (Bloch 1997); colonial and post-colonialattitudes often conflate ‘being educated’ with ‘speaking English’ (Bamgbose 2000; Campbell-Makini 2000). Current university entry requirements in the region demand English fluency(Peirce and Ridge 1997), and these requirements help perpetuate the belief that English fluencyand being educated are synonymous.
The gatekeeping function of formal education in Southern Africa also reinforces the status ofdifferent languages, and by extension, the status of different cultures (Desai 1994; Prinsloo 2002).South Africa provides an excellent example of this principle; during the Apartheid regime, thegovernment enacted language policies – namely, the mandatory use of Afrikaans in many schools– that were designed to oppress black South Africans. This policy provided a central impetus tothe civil rights movement in South Africa, and it sparked the famous Soweto Riots of 1976 inwhich schoolchildren protested the forced use of Afrikaans in schools (Luckett 1995; Peirce andRidge 1997; Thompson 1998). These beliefs illustrate the impact that cultural, social, and politi-cal forces have on determining the shape of literacy instruction in the region.
Condition of schools
Other issues, such as the condition of available schools, appear to be largely structural issues onthe surface, but deeper examination illustrates their inherent socio-cultural and political nature.
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Certainly, structural constraints abound in Southern Africa. Primary schooling is not universal,free, or mandatory in many countries in the region, and it is plagued by a host of problems includ-ing insufficient resources and teachers who are under-trained – if trained at all (Christensen 1991;Motala 1995; Daun 2000; Elley 2000). Elley (2000) reports that in South Africa, ‘The majorityof schools attended by predominantly black children still have large classes, under-qualifiedteachers and few resources. School and classroom libraries are rare, and most children come fromvirtually bookless homes’ (243–244). Not only are schools under-resourced, but their curriculaalso are ‘cognitively impoverished’ (Plüddemann 1999, 31).
One of the consequences of the poor quality of schooling in Southern Africa is that childrenare much more likely to leave school illiterate (Motala 1995). This happens in part becausestudents are more likely to drop out or to repeat grades. Motala reported an estimate that only 51–62% of black South African students will reach Standard 6 in 12 years of schooling, while 96%of their white counterparts would reach the same standard in only 8 years. Christensen (1991)likewise reported that, of a 1985 cohort of 1000 schoolchildren in Lesotho, only 86 graduatedfrom Standard 7 (the final year of primary school) on time. Of that original 1000 children, over400 had dropped out entirely, and the rest were repeating standards. These high repeater ratesrepresent high costs for governments that pay for primary education (Christensen 1991; Greaney1996; Elley 2000). For example, Christensen (1991) suggests that for every successful Standard7 graduate, Lesotho’s government pays for an average of 14.7 years of schooling.
The condition of local schools may be problematic indeed, but their description in the litera-ture reinforces stereotypes of ‘poor Africans’ who are unable to address the educational needs oftheir own children. As Tikly (2001, 168) notes, ‘In many European constructions of the African‘Other’, Africa’s malaise is seen to be rooted in Africa itself’. Describing school curricula as‘cognitively impoverished’ or local homes as ‘virtually bookless’ sets up subtle comparisons withwestern values, beliefs, and educational systems – clearly, African literacy education does notmeasure up to western standards by such comparisons. Such descriptions and comparisons mayalso serve the interests of international aid organisations, who increasingly control educational,language and literacy development agendas in the developing world (Cooke 1999). In this regard,African researchers have not gone far enough in creating their own tools for evaluating schoolconditions in the region.
Printed materials
The availability of printed materials for readers – both in terms of textbook provision for primaryschools and general reading materials in the community at large – also has generated significantdiscussion in the Southern African literature. Researchers have argued that a ‘book famine’ existsin Africa (Greaney 1996; Walter 1996). Bamhare (2001), for example, notes that only 5% of the140 schools in Zimbabwe’s capital city have functioning school libraries. Schools in rural areasface particular challenges in gaining access to books (Arden 2001), and even where books areavailable, there are usually not enough for all students (Arua 2001). Evidence suggests that booksother than textbooks are even rarer (Greaney 1996). This scarcity of books means that Africanchildren rarely have the opportunity to read for enjoyment or for other non-school purposes, andwhen they leave school, they enter a nearly bookless culture (Walter 1996). Researchers haveargued that these facts have serious consequences for African students, who do not have sufficientopportunities to develop their reading skills, and who may lose those limited skills when theyleave school, due to the lack of reading material (Walter 1996).
Textbooks play a highly significant role in Southern African education, and a lack of avail-able texts can pose serious consequences for teaching and learning. Some scholars argue thattextbooks often are the only source of academic knowledge and information in classrooms,
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particularly when teachers are unqualified, poorly trained, or have not attained higher levels ofeducation themselves (Crossley and Murby 1994; McCallum 1995; Oliveira 1996). However,some research suggests that access to textbooks is not enough to promote reading achievementin developing countries; students also must have access to a wide variety of interesting readingmaterial (see Elley 1991, 1996, and 2000 for reviews of this research). Some argue thatstudents may find material in textbooks artificial or irrelevant to their lives; that textbooksteach reading skills such as phonics, grammar, and vocabulary in isolation from meaning; andthat textbooks can be biased toward the dominant class or toward colonial values (Anderson1996). Anderson also argues that access to a high volume of interesting reading material iseven more important for literacy development in second-language learners, such as the major-ity of students in Southern Africa.
As with the scholarly discussion of the condition of schools, the treatment of textbook provi-sion also is highly political. Unfortunately, the portrayal of Africa as suffering from a ‘bookfamine’ results in an image of the continent as being ‘helpless and hopeless’ (Walter 1996, 133),which may serve to exacerbate the problem. Again, western perspectives dominate this discus-sion. Walter’s (1996) critique of the ‘nearly bookless culture’ relies upon a highly westernperspective – that reading is (and should be) done for pleasure and enjoyment, and it implies thatreading for pleasure would automatically happen if interesting texts were available. Likewise,Elley’s (1991, 1996, 2000) suggestion that children need access to a wide variety of interestingreading material appears to make sense on the surface, but there appears to be no critical consid-eration of ‘interesting reading material’ being a socially and culturally defined construct, or thatit may include texts other than storybooks. Of the available literature, Anderson’s (1996) argu-ment – that children may find textbooks artificial, irrelevant, and biased toward dominant orcolonial values – best demonstrates the importance of providing locally-developed readingmaterials.
This issue of availability of printed materials therefore is closely linked with the politicallanguage issue. When countries choose English (or another European language), they have awide array of printed material available to them (Ferguson 2000), but attempting to providetextbooks in local languages significantly complicates the issue. Providing texts of any sort ineach of the languages present in most of the Southern African nations appears to be a financialand logistical nightmare. However, like school conditions, textbook availability cannot be seenas a merely structural problem; it is one that is closely connected to socio-economic and politi-cal issues. For example, Mpanga (2003) notes that the issue of book production and availabilitycannot be separated from socio-economic concerns – and these economic factors play an impor-tant role in the culture of reading. Mpanga’s question, ‘What percentage of the African popula-tion has disposable income to spend on reading matter?’ (2003, 71), leads him to discuss therole of economics in geopolitics and globalisation. Mpanga suggests that book development andbook trade are directly affected by globalisation, and he also argues that the different colonialand liberation histories of African nations affect the stages of book development of thosenations. Mpanga’s question is therefore a useful one for evaluating the suggestions of those whoadvocate the wider availability of interesting reading material, even that which is producedlocally.
Home/community uses of literacy
Africa’s history of colonial (and post-colonial) domination should highlight the inseparability ofliteracy and education from sociopolitical considerations. Some scholars have suggested that liter-acy development in the region cannot be separated from these cultural, political, and economicfactors. For example, Southern African scholars have targeted the promotion of a ‘reading
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culture’, rather than structural constraints, as the key issue for literacy development in the region.Researchers from the region regularly identify the lack of a reading culture as a significant factorhindering literacy development in Southern Africa (Bamhare 2001; Mashishi 2001, 2003; Masekoand Thumbadoo 2003; Obanya 2003). Bamhare notes, for example, ‘Whatever the cause there islittle excitement about reading among Zimbabweans today, and while it may be too late to alterthe habits of the adults, we can still teach children to love books’ (2001, 105). Although this iden-tification of lack of reading culture comes from local researchers, a more critical examinationsuggests that these recommendations are largely influenced by western perspectives. Beliefs thatexcitement about reading and a love of books are crucial for literacy not only reflect westernvalues, but they reflect largely white, middle-class values (Purcell-Gates 1995; Barton and Hamil-ton 1998; Purcell-Gates and Waterman 2000). It therefore may be useful for regional literacyscholars to consider questions such as, ‘What might a local reading culture look like?’, rather thantrying to import western reading culture into the region.
Differences between home and school values, beliefs, and practices surrounding literacy canbe very stark. For example, Stein and Slonimsky (2001) compared parent-child literacy practicesin three South African families – one unemployed black family, one middle-class black family,and a middle-class white family. They found important differences in the ways in which eachfamily practiced literacy, differences that were shaped by both ethnicity and class. In the unem-ployed black family, literacy was largely a family affair, and it centred on helping children withhomework. In the middle-class black family, the grandmother modelled mainstream literacypractices through shared storybook reading. In the white family, literacy practices were playful.Stein and Slonimsky argue that each family’s position in relation to text, knowledge, authority,and literacy has deep implications for each child’s experience of schooling.
Learning to read and write have come to be associated with western practices, and throughliteracy instruction, African children come into direct contact with power structures that have thecapacity to determine their social, economic and political futures. Prinsloo suggests,
‘Learning to read and write’ is not only interactional work but ideological work as well, however, inthat it involves taking on particular assumptions that come to be taken-for-granted about relation-ships, status and value, including relations of teachers and students, of adults and children, of ethnic-ity, gender and social class (2002, 4).
This is particularly true in Southern Africa, where educational systems have been based largelyon western (typically British) models, and that are often partly funded by international aid organ-isations. Prinsloo and Bloch argue that these educational systems are guided largely by assump-tions of cultural and linguistic deficit. Too often, they suggest, literacy is dislocated from its socialcontexts in South African education, and ‘perceived problems with children’s “reading readi-ness” have come to operate as a proxy for teachers’ negative views of children’s social/familybackgrounds’ (1998, 4).
Rensburg (2001) and others have suggested that literacy researchers, practitioners and policy-makers must consider the ways in which people view and actually use literacy in society. Thescholarly and political debate about literacy has largely focused on literacy as something thathappens in schools and higher education, rather than something that is also located in homes andcommunities – a local practice as well as a school practice. Scholars increasingly recognise theneed for an understanding of how Africans view and utilise literacies in order to serve thosecommunities better. According to Rensburg:
Those who argue that reading and literacy is not neutral, but carries the power relationships andcultural baggage of those who control it have a point that is worth taking up in relation to the AfricanRenaissance. If reading and literacy is an instrument that changes shape in different contexts, whatcan we do in Africa to this medium so that it reflects our varied heritages and enhances the floweringof an indigenous culture? (2001, 202).
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Prinsloo and Bloch similarly argue that educational literacy policy and practice cannot moveforward ‘while our understandings are so limited of literacy in social practice, in the homes, localcommunities and workplaces in South Africa’ (1998, 1).
Only after researchers understand the purposes of and attitudes toward language and literacyin the community can they begin to examine language and literacy in the schools. Once localresearchers have an understanding of home and community practices, beliefs, and values aboutliteracy, they must then assess how those practices align with school practices, beliefs and valuesconcerning literacy. Literacy education in Southern Africa is largely based upon western modelsof literacy, and it is therefore crucial for researchers to ask, ‘What might an African model of liter-acy instruction look like?’ Answering this question may help schools make literacy instructionmore relevant to local contexts and local lives.
Promising programmes
This increased awareness of the need to develop African solutions for African issues and the needto create links between homes, communities and schools has led to the development of somepromising local programmes. Zimbabwe, for example, developed the Children’s Reading TentProject to provide children with opportunities to enjoy books and reading at the ZimbabweInternational Book Fair (Bamhare 2001). These tents were equipped with items such as books,reading/writing/word games, a ‘magic reading carpet’, and videos of educational programming.South Africa also has developed a number of programmes, including the national MasifundeSonke initiative to promote the 2001 Year of the Reader campaign (Maseko and Thumbadoo2003), the Concentrated Language Encounter Project (CLE) (Donald et al., 2003), and the Parentsand Schools Learning Clubs (Mashishi 2003). In addition, researchers in Swaziland have devel-oped a compendium of successful reading projects to record the features that contribute to aparticular programme’s success and to ‘encourage people involved in significant educationalinnovations to learn from each other’s experiences’ (Shongwe and Treffgarne 2003, 101); thisdatabase encourages Africans to develop local solutions for literacy development.
The Parents and Schools Learning Clubs (PASLC) (Mashishi 2003) is one example of aprogramme that uses local family and community resources and knowledge to develop appropri-ate literacy curricula. This programme takes a family literacy approach, which Mashishi suggestsis particularly appropriate for South Africa, given the ‘ravages inflicted by the apartheid systemon the African family’ (2003, 44). The PASLC curriculum was developed over a 10-year periodusing a model of collaborative action research that utilised the knowledge, experiences, andconcerns of parents in conjunction with those of programme staff. Much of the programmecentres on reading and writing based on family-generated texts, such as family praise poems(a traditional form of oral literature in the region), family histories, and family trees. In interviewswith programme participants, families indicated that they had never before considered that theirculture could be relevant to education. Families also reported that their children were now highlymotivated to read, and that the families participated in cooperative learning activities related totheir children’s learning.
Programmes such as these are promising for several reasons. First, these programmes havebeen developed by local researchers and educators, often with the participation of families andcommunities, rather than being imposed by western researchers or aid organisations. Theseprogrammes also address the specific needs of learners in the region by supporting the language-learning needs of children raised in multilingual contexts and by using culturally-relevant learningmaterials. The PASLC programme, in particular, is especially promising in that it directly drawsupon local families’ ‘funds of knowledge’ (Gonzalez et al. 1995) to develop literacy curriculumand materials.
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Conclusion
The recent Pan-African Conferences on Reading-for-All illustrate that African scholars areanswering the call to develop local solutions to local problems and are taking seriously the chal-lenges to literacy development in Africa. This scholarship is increasingly being driven by Africanresearchers, practitioners, and policy-makers – an important movement in terms of effectivelyaddressing the constraints and contexts that shape literacy development in Southern Africa.However, while the call to develop African solutions to African problems is both commendableand desirable, it is also important to note that with the increasing pace of globalisation, Africansolutions cannot be completely divorced from the global context.
Southern Africa is no stranger to globalisation – globalisation has affected Africa for centu-ries in the form of colonisation, slave trading, religious proselytising, and other forms of interna-tional contact and exploitation. Yet, the nature and pace of globalisation are rapidly changing.New communication technologies, the relative ease of global travel, and shifting beliefs aboutinternational relations lead to a high level of interconnectedness and exchange in global econom-ics, cultures, and politics. As a result of this historical and current globalisation, western perspec-tives traditionally have dominated Southern African education and literacy development.Although Southern African scholars have increasingly answered the call to develop local Africaneducational solutions, these scholars and their work are still heavily influenced by westernperspectives and agendas.
Western agendas shape African scholarship and educational policies and programmes inmany ways. For example, international organisations such as the International MonetaryFund, the World Bank, UNESCO, and USAID influence African education both through theirfunding of African education and their own research into education and literacy in the devel-oping world. Arnove (1999) acknowledges that the educational agendas of such organisa-tions are deeply entwined with economic agendas, and Marginson and Mollis (2002, 582)suggest that ‘often there is a transparent cultural affinity between applied research in compar-ative education and its financing and use’. Because these institutions wield such great powerover literacy education in Southern Africa, local scholars cannot ignore their perspectives andtheir agendas.
Indeed, Tikly (2001) argues that those who take a transformationalist approach believe thatglobalisation leads to the extreme marginalisation of some states and communities while othersbecome more powerful. Tikly also suggests that the result of many of the structural adjustmentprogrammes advocated by international organisations has been the ‘management of exclusion’ ofsuch marginalised states (p. 152). Yet, international organisations do not have uniform agendas,and different or contradictory agendas may be confusing and even harmful to negotiate for Africancountries. Studies sponsored by international agencies often reinforce stereotypes of ‘poor, help-less Africans’; as Tikly notes,
International school effectiveness studies, supported by global agencies such as the World Bank canfeed into and support such views. Largely based on research, rationalities and an underlying episte-mology developed elsewhere, school effectiveness studies lay the ‘blame’ for school failure at thelocal level (2001, 168).
Because of this reality, African researchers may rightly feel that they ignore western perspectivesand western agendas at their peril. While calling for local research and local programmes maymake excellent sense on many levels, the reality may be that a local African agenda could poten-tially close off important avenues to funding and other useful international resources if theperspectives of powerful organisations are ignored or actively resisted.
Western perspectives influence local research in other subtle ways. Most African scholarsare themselves the product of schooling that has been largely derived from western educational
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and thought systems, and particularly in South Africa and other countries with large colonialand postcolonial presences, many African researchers directly descend from European ethnicgroups. Likewise, Cooke (1999) and Tikly (2001) both argue that African educational systems,particularly those that utilise English-language instruction, rely heavily on thinking that isbased in Greco-Roman and European Enlightenment traditions. As a result, it may not bepossible – or even desirable – to separate fully African epistemologies from their westerncounterparts.
African scholars can and should continue to develop their own local perspectives, but theymust view these perspectives with a critical eye that recognises the various roles of westernperspectives and scholarly literatures. Not all western perspectives may be inappropriate whenapplied to African contexts. As both Cooke (1999) and Tikly (2001) note, English-language educa-tion and western thought systems have been liberationary for Africans in some ways, as demon-strated by the reliance of African intellectuals and revolutionaries on western ideals during nationalliberation struggles. Indeed, Tikly (2001) argues that Thabo Mbeki’s calls for ‘African renais-sance’ directly build on western intellectual traditions. Globalisation certainly has its pitfalls, butpart of its promise is the merging of useful ideas, values, and traditions from around the world.Indeed, the construct of hybridisation has become increasingly important in scholarly thinking,particularly as it applies to globalisation and identities (Braziel and Mannur 2003; Hall 2003).Similarly, in applying Bayart’s (1993) concept of ‘historicity’, Tikly suggests: ‘Rather than seethe modern African State…as simply an invention and tool of colonialism and neo-colonialism,Bayart prefers to see the African State as the outcome of political struggles and developmentsdating from pre-colonial times’ (Tikly 2001, 164).
This viewpoint of hybridisation and historicity may be a useful starting point for consideringthe development of African perspectives and African solutions – new African perspectives andsolutions may be built upon and derived from both indigenous and western thinking. As I haveargued in this paper, scholars in the region have increasingly focused on social, cultural, and polit-ical issues in their explorations of primary school literacy education in Southern Africa. Othercomparative education scholars have likewise noted that educational decisions cannot bedivorced from cultural, social, economic, and political factors (see, for example, Ginsburg et al.1990), and that global organisations play an increasingly significant role in educational develop-ment (Arnove, 1999; Cooke 1999; Tikly 2001; Marginson and Mollis 2002). The reality, there-fore, is that African-developed solutions will have to rely, at least to a certain degree, uponwestern perspectives.
While some may view this reality as limiting, it is possible that such a hybrid African perspec-tive may be useful beyond the borders of Southern Africa and could, in fact, influence globalperspectives on literacy education. As globalisation and the dominance of western perspectiveshas increased, some comparative education scholars have called for greater incorporation of alter-native voices (Marginson and Mollis, 2002) and the need to develop cultural perspectives andencourage multidirectional flows of scholarship (Arnove, 1999). As Marginson and Mollis(2002) argue:
Comparative education should be able to encompass both hegemonic culture and alternative voicesand to move with greater freedom between global and national/local, between macro and microdimensions, between quantitative and qualitative methods, between theoretical sets, and across thedisciplines (p. 584).
African scholars, therefore, should continue to develop their critical perspectives, and they shouldalso be encouraged to share those perspectives beyond their region. As Tikly (2001, 166)suggests, ‘There is much that Africa can learn from Africa’, but I would also argue that there ismuch that the wider world can learn from Africa as well.
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Notes on contributor
Kristen H. Perry is an assistant professor at the University of Kentucky in Kentucky, United States. She hastaught elementary school in the US, and served as a primary resource teacher through the US Peace Corpsin Lesotho, Africa. Her research focuses primarily on literacy practices and culture, particularly in Africancommunities both in the US and abroad. Her specific areas of interest include the ways in which culture andliteracy development transact in diverse communities. Her research also investigates the various waysin which home and community practices of literacy align with school practices of literacy, particularly forAfrican immigrant and refugee children and families. She is the recipient of the J. Michael Parker Awardfor research in adult literacy from the (US) National Reading Conference.
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