Mobile libraries at your convenience
HOUGHTON – In it's contribution to alleviating the reading crisis in Africa, an NGO delivers mobile libraries in schools.
Youth month came with a reflection of issues affecting young people and children and among them a high illiteracy rate. A study recommended that reading is the basis for all other learning and so if children can’t read, they will struggle with schooling and be much less likely to achieve academic and career success.
A non-governmental organisation (NGO) called Molteno Institute for Language and Literacy based in Houghton seeks to promote a love of reading among children.
According to the Institute’s CEO Masennya Dikotla, the NGO was founded in 1974 by Rhodes University which commissioned a study then founded by the Molteno brothers after whom the project was named.
“One of the major findings of the research was that African children were made to start and study through the medium of English from the lowest grade. The problem with this is that it creates dual problems for the children as they have to learn the language and before they can master it, they also have to learn the content. Adult people also struggle,” Dikotla said.
He added that the Molteno project then developed an African language foundation phase course called Breakthrough to Literacy.
“What Breakthrough to Literacy does is it uses a combination of whole language approach as well as the phonetics. In other words, before you do anything else, you have to recognise that children are bringing to school a certain competency in their official language and therefore you lay the foundation on the home language then they understand,” explained Dikotla.
He said that they’ve been helping all the provinces in SA as well as seven other African countries. We translated and adapted our material and our methodologies to the African languages. Dikotla said that however, as time went on, they realised that children are not only unable to read, but also lack books to read.
They then started to develop more readers in all African languages through a programme called Vula Bula which is an African language graded reader scheme used by primary schools. The CEO added that they also collaborated with some publishers to develop mobile libraries.
Dikotla explained, “This a wheelie wagon, a trolley, full of books with a minimum of 300 and is lockable. They come at varying prices to accommodate different categories of schools.
“The whole idea behind the mobile libraries is that while people are waiting for the government to build brick-and-mortar libraries, we give them these books. We have supplied these trollies with assistance of Telkom, National Lotteries Commission, and some departments in provinces.”
He added that they also coach teachers and show them how to incorporate the content into their curriculum and evaluation feedback has always come back positive.
Details: Molteno Institute for Language and Literacy 011 484 6245
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