Competition Promotes Literacy and African Literature

Students learning in South Africa

An emphasis on reading skills is a vital part of a young child's primary education. In South Africa, still healing from the wounds of apartheid, highlighting the intrinsic values of literacy and of reading African literature are as much cultural imperatives as they are educational.

Since the defeat of apartheid in the 1990s, South Africa has been struggling with widespread inequality and poverty, both of which are perpetuated by high illiteracy rates. The cultural repression that was institutionalized during apartheid systematically suppressed local and traditional African literature. Recently, however, students from 10 high schools in Limpopo, the site of a NetAid World Schoolhouse project supported by the Goldman Sachs Foundation, were able to enjoy the best of Africa's literature and improve their reading and writing skills in the process.

To usher in a new century, the Zimbabwean International Book Fair compiled a list of must-read books, "Africa's 100 Best Books of the 20th century", celebrating and honoring African authors from around the continent. To help publicize the list, directors of the South African International Festival of Books, known as Bookeish!, decided to launch a national reading competition among 100 schools in the Gauteng, Western Cape and Limpopo provinces. Participating schools received a copy of each title on the list, donated by their respective publishers.

The competition, which officially began in February 2003 and ended in June 2003, was launched and supported by READ Educational Trust, a NetAid World Schoolhouse partner, and the Masifunde Sonke Reading project, a special initiative of the South African Ministry of Education to promote literacy. 

At each school, teachers established reading groups of 4-6 students and encouraged them to read any 10 books from the list. The first groups to do so by 23 May were then entered into the next and final round of the competition, which required participants to take a quiz testing their knowledge of the books. They were also asked to write an essay about the value of African literature for the continent and the rest of the world. Winners would be awarded a free writing workshop jointly hosted by the University of Witwatersrand in South Africa and READ. 

Ten schools from Bushbuckridge, Ekhuruleni, Soweto, Western Cape, and Soshanguve were honored on 1 August at a ceremony presided by the country's Minister Of Education, Professor Kader Asmal, at the Pretoria Art Museum in South Africa. Addressing the audience, he said, "Illiteracy remains an obstacle to true freedom for many in our country," as he thanked the organizations and individuals who took part in the competition. 

"We have a firm belief that the economic and social health of our people depends on building a literate and educated nation," stressed Asmal, "one that is able to read not only for professional and practical purposes, but also for the pure pleasure and enjoyment that one gets from sitting down with a good book."