“THE ongoing literacy crisis in South Africa requires that organisations who care about the future of this country contribute towards encouraging a love and culture of reading,” says Sechaba Motsieloa, McDonald SA – marketing director.
According to the Progress in International Reading Literacy Study, eight out of 10 South African school children struggling to read by the age of ten and 81% could not read for comprehension in any of the country’s eleven official languages.
Simply put: they can’t read for reasoning.
To deal with these findings and other factors such as underfeeding, global leading food chain McDonald SA and its partners, are on a quest to donate over a million books to disadvantaged schools and Early Childhood Development Centres across the country.
This as the world celebrates Literacy Month in September.
“Our mission is to ensure all children, no matter their background, can access the joy of reading. This September, together with fantastic charity partners such as the SABC, National Library of South Africa and the Rugby Sevens Team amongst others, we will do our best to ensure as many children have access to books in their schools to spark a lifelong love of reading,” says Motsieloa.
The study further identified that reading ability of 400,000 students globally in 2021, South Africa ranked last out of 57 countries assessed.
Unstable home background, malnutrition, poor infrastructure be it at school or in community, also play a part in these scary findings in SA, regarded as one of the biggest unequal societies in the world.
Motsieloa also added the company has been offering children’s books as an alternate option to toys, with every purchase of a McDonald’s Happy Meal, since 2019.
Image supplied (Time to read, buddy. A call by McDonald SA to inculcate reading from a young age).
