The month of May may have just past but it is still worth highlighting its significance in the country and on the continent.
Africa Month celebrates the founding of the Organisation of African Unity (OAU), now the AU, whose initial aim was set to encourage the decolonisation of various African countries that still remained colonised. Africa Month is also aimed to acknowledge the progress Africa has made, while reflecting upon common challenges faced by the continent.
This year, Africa Month was celebrated under the theme “The year of OR Tambo: Building a Better Africa and a Better World.” It presented an opportunity to promote African unity, deeper regional integration and recommitment to Africa as a common destiny.
According to organisers of the Africa Month celebrations, a focal point this year’s programme was the create discussion platforms for South Africans, in particular local communities, to engage in conversation within the broader theme of decolonisation.
It is a fact of history that Africa and South Africa emerge from a brutal era of colonialism in various forms. Needless to say, though all countries of the continent have since been liberated from the bondage of colonialism, this has not been without its own scars and setbacks.
Often we are reminded of a paradox of a rich Africa, and poor Africans, and at all times we are encouraged to deliberate on what needs to be done to salvage the situation.
Though we ought to be beyond the point of deliberating, but rather engaged in action, without a doubt, raising literacy levels is at the centre of any intervention we ought to make if Africans are to prosper.
The issue of literacy and education has for years occupied centre stage in the efforts of various leaders of the African continent.
For instance, having been the first country to attain independence, Dr Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana placed education at the centre of Ghana’s development trajectory. In 1951 he embarked on a programme of accelerated development plan for education. It aimed at creating a highly literate society to meet the challenges of a young independent sovereign state.
This plan set up a six-year primary course, to be attended as close to universally as possible. All children were to learn arithmetic, as well as gain a sound foundation for citizenship with permanent literacy in both English and the vernacular. Primary education became compulsory in 1962.
After seizing power in a popularly-supported coup in 1983, aged just 33 years, former Burkina Faso President Thomas Sankara also embarked on a nationwide literacy campaign aimed at promoting and prioritising education.
Due to large investment in education since independence, Zimbabwe has also had the highest adult literacy rate in Africa, which a few years ago stood at 92%.
Dubbed the home of legends, the Eastern Cape knows all too well about the importance of literacy and education, having produced a number of academics itself.
From the first black chartered accountant, Professor Wiseman Nkuhlu, to the country’s first black statesman, President Nelson Mandela, the Eastern Cape has for decades been a source of true tales of academic excellence and inspiration.
Sadly, it would seem the only glory we can now truly claim is the achievements of the mostly old, and some departed. The literacy rate and general level of academic performance in the province leaves little to be desired.
For instance for three consecutive years, the Eastern Cape has trailed behind all the other eight provinces in terms of matric performance. A quick glance of statistics indicates that in 2014 it’s matric pass rate stood at 65.3%, in 2015 at 56.8%, a decline of 8.6% from the previous year, while in 2016 it stood at 59.3% an improvement of 2.5% from the previous year.
A variety of reasons can be advanced for this sorry state of affairs, but a fact remains, it is deplorable. To only lament however will not salvage the situation, we each need to play a part in ensuring that we promote and instil a culture of academic performance and excellence.
It is for this reason that I have, in my personal capacity been involved in supporting education initiatives in my village, in Tsojana in Tsomo. This includes establishing a resource centre, a school, organising career days for the benefit of surrounding schools, providing financial support for educators at the school I have adopted.
This is done in recognition of an astute imbalance in terms of basic amenities provided to village schools, versus in urban or peri-urban areas.
One of the challenges currently facing schools, particularly in rural areas or villages, is a lack of interest in academic progression because learners see no exit or life beyond their depressed rural surroundings.
Lack of adequate equipment and resources like computers, access to ICT infrastructure, computer labs, libraries, qualified personnel in critical subject areas, role models are just some of the challenges faced by rural learners.
A country with low levels of literacy and a large number of uneducated or poorly educated youth will find it difficult to progress economically. We ought to prevent such an occurrence in our country in general and province in particular.
Of great concern is that, even the profession of teaching has lost its attraction due to poor conditions of service and salaries of teachers. Teachers have now become demoralised as a result don’t perform to the best of their abilities.
This further leaves learners more vulnerable and in turn demoralised. This has a ripple effect, because when learners drop out of school, their prospects become bleak, they become vulnerable to more societal ills, and it becomes a cycle we cannot stop.
Let us all play a part and cut the cycle before it gets out of control.
Most importantly, let us re-establish in our schools a tradition of academic excellence; instil among our youth values for ones education, and in the process, reclaim the glory days.
Sango Ntsaluba is co-founder of auditing firm SizweNtsalubaGobodo and current chairman of NMT Capital.