Abstract
In this chapter, we explore how the South African Kha Ri Gude mass literacy campaign, flowing from and drawing on the experience of the an earlier national literacy campaign, was developed to support those otherwise marginalized in the South African society. We explain the aims of the campaign as furthering the goal of ‘Literacy Plus’ (i.e. Literacy Plus enabling increased participation in economic, social, and political life). We explicate how a range of (mixed) methods was used for soliciting feedback from learners (as well as from educators and coordinators) throughout both campaigns and further to this in an assessment that took place (2013–2015) by the Adult Basic Education and Youth Development Department at the University of South Africa. We indicate how, in the assessment, we considered ourselves to be involved in a relationship of reciprocity with the (sampled) participants as we explored the impact of the Kha Ri Gude campaign from their perspectives (as developed/recounted through the interactional encounter with us).
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Notes
- 1.
Kha Ri Gude is the Tshivenda for ‘Let us learn’. A decision was made to use the Tshivenda terminology as a way of accentuating the minority status of the language.
- 2.
Literacy Plus meant that classes were encouraged and supported in forming small and microenterprises as an output of the social and educational rationales. (The term ‘Literacy Plus’ was coined in the Indian literacy campaign.)
- 3.
The CEO of the literacy campaign (McKay) had previously presented the training courses for the Community Development Workers under the auspices of the University of South Africa. It was therefore possible for her to draw them into the literacy campaign ensuring a synergistic relationship between them and the campaign. There were about 4000 of them, and they were drawn in (as part of the launch of KRG) as interministerial stakeholders.
- 4.
These may include constitutional rights, human rights, balloting and regular elections, the availability of social services, etc.
- 5.
Continuing via other NLM-inspired missions.
- 6.
In later assessments of the campaigns, many learners pointed to skills that they had learned this way.
- 7.
The KRG LAPs were based on the design of the LAPS administered in the SANLI. In both campaigns, they were administered each year, to each of the learners.
- 8.
As was indicated from the data captured on the learner registration forms.
- 9.
The visit in which Romm participated to KwaZulu-Natal (2013) was with Akwasi Arko-Achemfuor and Joyce Dhlamini. (Arko-Achemfuor was the project leader for the whole KRG assessment.) The visits in which Romm participated to the Eastern Cape were with Mpho Dichaba and Mfungulwa Anakoka (2014) and the following year (2015) with Akwasi Arko-Achemfuor (with the latter visit being a ‘small business training’ visit).
- 10.
As it turned out, these also became occasions in which participants/members indicated to us what further support would be helpful to them, some of which we tried to take up ourselves and some of which McKay transmitted to the Ministerial Committee at the ‘phase-out’ stage of KRG. See also Section 8.3.3.
- 11.
If it is possible to establish an efficient Adult and Youth Community Learning Agency, consideration could be given to locating KRG within its ambit. However, the KRG network is a highly efficient delivery system which should not be tampered with.
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McKay, V.I., Romm, N.R.A. (2019). Researching the Impact of the South African Kha Ri Gude Mass Literacy Campaign: Considering the Support for Those Otherwise Marginalized in Economic, Social, and Political Life. In: McIntyre-Mills, J., Romm, N.R.A., Corcoran-Nantes, Y. (eds) Democracy and Governance for Resourcing the Commons. Contemporary Systems Thinking. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-04891-4_13
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