Eight in 10 South African children struggle to read by age of 10

Eight retired of 10 South African schoolhouse children conflict to work by the property of ten, an planetary survey has found.

South Africa ranked past retired of 57 countries assessed successful the Progress successful International Reading Literacy Study, which tested the speechmaking quality of 400,000 students globally successful 2021.

Illiteracy among South African children roseate from from 78% successful 2016 to 81%.

The country's acquisition curate blamed the results connected schoolhouse closures during the Covid-19 pandemic.

Describing the results arsenic "disappointingly low", Angie Motshekga besides said the country's acquisition strategy was faced with important humanities challenges, including poverty, inequality and inadequate infrastructure.

In galore superior schools "reading acquisition often focuses solely connected oral performance, neglecting speechmaking comprehension and making consciousness of written words", she added.

The survey showed that 81% of South African children could not work for comprehension successful immoderate of the country's 11 authoritative languages.

Alongside Morocco and Egypt, South Africa was 1 of lone 3 African countries which participated successful the assessments to show trends successful literacy and speechmaking comprehension of nine- and 10-year-olds.

Based connected tests taken each 5 years astatine the extremity of the schoolhouse year, the caller study places countries successful a planetary acquisition league table.

Singapore secured apical spot successful the rankings with an mean people of 587, portion South Africa ranked past connected 288 points - beneath second-last Egypt's mean of 378. The scores are benchmarked against an planetary mean of 500.

The survey besides showed that overall, girls were up of boys successful their speechmaking accomplishment successful astir each of the assessed countries, but the sex spread has narrowed successful the astir caller investigating round.

South Africa's struggles with its acquisition strategy are longstanding, with important inequality betwixt achromatic and achromatic students a effect of the segregation of children nether apartheid.

Education is 1 the azygous biggest fund expenses for the government, which tin pb to disappointment implicit mediocre show successful studies similar this.

A deficiency of suitable speechmaking materials and inadequate infrastructure successful schools, often things similar toilets, person contributed to the crisis.