literacy

'Writing the Wrongs: International Benchmarks on Adult Literacy' argues that governments are not investing in programmes sufficiently to achieve the UN goal of reducing illiteracy by 50 percent by 2015. Published by the Global Campaign for Education, the study attempts to systematise experiences of what works in adult literacy by analysing 67 successful literacy programmes in 35 countries.

The more things change the more they stay the same.

SADTU welcomes Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan’s budget speech presented in Parliament this afternoon. We welcome the fact that education continues to be our government’s number one priority. The R165 billion given to education attests to this.

We note the following on matters of education:

Wow, another R2,7 billion for basic education. The more one watches the depressing matric results, the more one thinks that money is not our problem. Poor rural schools often out perform urban schools with better facilities. We need to refocus on the basics such as teaching and learning in a stable well managed environment.

No real mention was made in the budget of ABET, the adult literacy campaign Gha Re Kude or the difficult work of the FET colleges in producing skilled people for the labour market.

The Ermelo High School judgement is certainly one the most important in the history of the Constitutional Court. This well-argued and pedagogically sound judgment investigated several critical questions about the roles and functions of the education department and governing bodies in terms of determining language policy and consequently sets new parameters in terms of access, redress and accountability.

The Voluntary Service Overseas (VSO) has blamed poor education for hindering Ghana’s development.

Education programme officer of the Voluntary Service Overseas (VSO), Ubald Sabogu, argues that the country could have attained the Millennium Development Goals of 2015 if development in three regions had kept pace with the rest of the country.

Sabogu has described the educational constraints in the Northern, Upper East and the West region as a “major problem hindering the development of the area.”

In December 2007, the board of the International Association of School Libraries (IASL) declared October as the international School Library month. The adoption coincided with the maiden decade celebration of the contribution of school libraries. The theme for 2009 is “School libraries: the Big Picture”. The significance accorded by IASL to the contribution of school libraries in improving the educational performance of pupils and the attainment of one the key objectives of the UN Millennium Development Goals cannot be over-emphasised.