Ithuba in the News

Synopsis of news articles published about the ITHUBA Writing Project official launch on September 10, 2007                                                          

Monday, September 10, 2007 Minister of Education Naledi Pandor and American Deputy Chief of Mission Don Teitelbaum launched an American-South African partnership to develop children’s books in local South African languages.  The three year $5 million dollar programme, funded by the US President’s Africa Education Initiative (AEI) intends to improve educational opportunities for Africa’s children.  The programme commemorated World Literacy Month, in which 1.3 million  copies of new books and learning materials for third, fourth, fifth grade students will be published the ITHUBA Writing Project. Cooperating partners include the National Department of Education, USAID (U.S. Agency for International Development), the University of Texas-San Antonio and South African non-governmental organizations READ and the Molteno Project.

South Africans are being trained to prepare materials in all 11 official languages. Minister Pandor has said it is a “well-established fact that home language, if correctly used, can be a powerful vehicle for developing foundational concepts for future learning.”  The minister said it was a concern that the majority of South African children were poor readers and often read at levels that were well below the age-appropriate level.  She also said, “this is a challenge for us in education, because we know that reading [and reading books in particular] is critical for learning,”

The minister however, expressed confidence that ITHUBA would respond to the vital need of supplying schools with books in all official languages to strengthen the use of those languages that have been neglected or marginalized in the past.

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