Languages, Part 2a
Kha Ri Gude
From the Kha Ri Gude web
site (currently not working):
What is the Kha Ri Gude Mass
Literacy Campaign?
The Kha Ri Gude Mass Literacy Campaign was launched in
February 2008, with the intention of enabling 4,7 million adults above the age
of 15 years to become literate and numerate in one of the eleven official
languages. Achieving this goal will enable South Africa to reach its UN:
Education For All commitment made at Dakar in 2000 - that of halving the
country’s illiteracy rates by [this year] 2015. Initiated and managed by the
Department of Education, Kha Ri Gude delivers across all nine provinces in a
massive logistical outreach. The Campaign enables adult learners to read, write
and calculate in their mother tongue in line with the Unit Standards for ABET
level 1, and also to learn spoken English. The specifically designed Campaign
materials teach reading, writing and numeracy and integrates themes and
lifeskills such as health, gender, the environment and civic education. These
materials have been adapted for use in Braille in eleven languages, and for use
by the deaf.
What is the role of the
volunteers?
The volunteers are central to the Campaign and contribute
not only to the teaching and learning process but also to ensuring advocacy,
recruitment, monitoring, and ensuring that the Campaign is a vibrant part of
communities. Methods of communication differ from the usual methods and
include: Word of mouth through meetings with women’s groups, the youth, taxi
organisations, trades unions, traditional leadership, traditional healers,
door-to-door visits. Announcements in church, at funerals, at Imbizos, taxi
ranks, society meetings. Interviews and announcements on local and community
radio, community newspapers. The display of posters, distribution of pamphlets,
adverts on notice boards and even loud hailing.
During the 2008/09 and 2009/20 financial years, the Campaign
enabled close on one million learners to become literate and has created
approximately 75 000 short term facilitation jobs. By drawing on the
participation of a range of stakeholders, the Campaign is evidence that
“together we can make a difference”.
The following chart illustrates the growth of the Campaign
by province over the 2008/09 and 2009/10 financial years.
CU Comment
This course is concerned with languages, and not primarily
with literacy.
Literacy is important for languages. Especially it is
important that literature of all kinds is produced in any language that expects
to survive, and that the literature is read.
But Kha Ri Gude is teaching English. It is not possible to
see for sure that this programme is going to strengthen the use of other
languages, as it claims, when it is at the same time promoting the use of
English.
More likely would be the movement to English, and the
sidelining of the indigenous languages. That would appear to be the intention
of Kha Ri Gude.
Kha Ri Gude was supposed to halve the South Africa’s
illiteracy rates by 2015. We are now in September, nearly to the end of the
third quarter of 2015, and we are not hearing about it. The Kha Ri Gude web
site is non-functional.
We have reported this programme in its own terms, with
minimal comment. We continue to await further reports, appraisals and
criticism.
