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Abstract
In this article, we locate the Kha Ri Gude South African Mass Literacy Campaign within the context of the problem of illiteracy and exclusion in South Africa, while concentrating on various post-apartheid initiatives designed to give visually challenged adults the opportunity to become literate. We shall provide a detailed account of focus group sessions organised in 2012; the aim of these sessions was to explore the experiences of blind literacy practitioners who were charged with the supervision and coordination of Braille literacy classes for blind, illiterate adults. We suggest that the way the practitioners expressed what being involved in the Campaign meant for them for an extended period (three years or more) gives us a glimpse of how, through their roles as literacy organisers, they were able to engender agency among blind adult literacy learners and themselves.
Notes on contributors
Veronica McKay (DLitt et Phil, Sociology, and Professor of Education) is Deputy Executive Dean in the College of Education, University of South Africa. Her research areas includeliteracy, second language teaching, HIV/AIDS and gender issues. She has carried out a broad range of inter-disciplinary research for bodies such as UNESCO, ADEA and the ILO. She has authored numerous articles in journals and books, co-authored two books and co-edited a series of books. She has participated in ministerial advisory committees and is currently a member of the Unesco (UIL) editorial board for the Global Report on Adult Learning.
Norma Romm (DLitt et Phil, Sociology) is Professor in the Department of Adult Basic Education and Youth Development, University of South Africa. She is author of The Methodologies of Positivism and Marxism (1991); Accountability in Social Research (2001); New Racism (2010); People's Education in Theoretical Perspective (with V. McKay, 1992); Diversity Management (with R. Flood, 1996) and Assessment of the Impact of HIV and AIDS in the Informal Economy of Zambia (with V. McKay, 2008). She has co-edited two books – Social Theory (with M. Sarakinsky, 1994) and Critical Systems Thinking (with R. Flood, 1996) – and published over 90 research articles.
Notes
1. During apartheid South Africa, Black people were politically excluded from free and compulsory education and schools for educating blind learners who were Black were few and far between.
2. Mertens points out that many constructivist-oriented researchers are situating their work within the broader framework of the pursuit of social justice, which implies embracing a transformative agenda. They can thus be said to embrace a transformative paradigm (along with a constructivist orientation). She notes that this points to ‘the permeability of the paradigmatic boundaries’ (Citation2010, 21).
3. However, the Ministerial Committee on Literacy (Citation2007, 13) pointed out that it is difficult to obtain data giving the total figure of illiterate disabled persons, and specifically the data of blind illiterates in South Africa. While the 2001 South African National Census indicates that there are 157,719 visually impaired adults who had never attended school, these data are not disaggregated into types of visual impairments nor does the data account for adults who had become blind later in life even if they had previously been visually literate (Department of Education, South Africa Citation2007).
4. This includes ping pong balls and egg boxes (to simulate the six dots used in Braille), Perkins Braillers, talking calculators, tactile shapes and large-print books for the partially sighted.
5. The campaign has, inter alia, been able to play a role in the alleviation of poverty in communities through its deployment of VEs: each year about 40,000 unemployed educators have been deployed across the campaign, 8% of whom are people with disabilities (http://www.kharigude.co.za/index.php/new-news).
6. VEs must have a matric and they are trained by supervisors in becoming literacy educators (Department of Education, South Africa Citation2008).
7. By 2012, 2.8 million illiterate learners had been enliterated by the Campaign, with teaching delivered by 40,000 educators, who were managed by approximately 4000 supervisors and 400 coordinators (Department of Basic Education, South Africa Citation2012). The programme of assessing the knowledge and skills of learners has been integrated into a continuous monitoring and evaluation assessment strategy that provides evidence in the form of a Learner Assessment Portfolio. The same standardised assessment instrument was adapted for Braille and is used to assess blind learners. The moderation of all Campaign assessments is overseen by the South African Qualification Authority, which moderates a 10% sample of learner assessments across all 11 official languages. Special verifiers are trained to moderate learners whose medium of instruction is Sign Language (McKay, CitationForthcoming).
8. Learner retention for blind adult learners was about 85% country wide. See http://www.education.gov.za/Home/KhaRiGudeWorkshop/tabid/857/Default.aspx. Dr Maguvhe estimates a pass rate of about 90% for blind adult learners since the inception of the Campaign (Maguvhe, personal ongoing communications,2013).
9. The research design includes focus group sessions with Kha Ri Gude graduates and VEs; interviews and focus group sessions with Kha Ri Gude supervisors and coordinators; visits to projects undertaken by Kha Ri Gude learners; analysis of sections of graduate portfolios (and particularly learners’ ‘letter to the Minister of Education’ that they are asked to write at the end of their course); and analysis of statistical data pertaining to, for example, the different geographical regions where learners are situated, their ages, their gender and their employment status.
10. The details of their specific roles can be found in the VEs’ handbook, which explains to VEs what they can expect from supervisors and coordinators (Department of Education, South Africa Citation2008).
11. Interestingly, in her account of what she calls ‘an Indigenous storywork methodology’, Archibald indicates that in order to honour a relational style of interaction with the participants, she ‘stopped using the tape recorder early on in our research relationship. Instead, I took written and “oral and heart memory” notes after discussions’ (Citation2008, 377). In our case, we also relied on notes, but ones that were taken during the discussions. It is also worth mentioning that Liamputtong (Citation2011) too refers to research situations where ‘the researchers … may decide that tape recording the group discussion is too intrusive … , hence note-taking may be adopted’ (85).
12. This workshop directly preceded the training and retraining of between 260 and 280 blind educators across the country in anticipation of the 1500 blind learners who were enrolled for Braille literacy in 2012. In a media release, Dr Maguvhe mentioned that the literacy campaign had already changed the lives of thousands of formerly illiterate blind people who have been able to regain confidence in their abilities. He added that ‘We are hoping to equip trainers here with the skills that will see an improvement in teaching. Hopefully the work put in during this process will show in the Learner Assessment Portfolios of adults who enrol in the programme’ (Citation2012b).