Yesterday we celebrated the 60th anniversary of International Literacy Day, as declared by UNESCO on 8 September 1966. It's worth stopping and asking what that anniversary really means here on South African soil.
Our country's foundational reading problem is well documented. In the 2023 Progress in International Reading Literacy Study, South Africa placed last among 57 nations, with 81% of Grade 4 learners unable to read for meaning in any language. This, and rightly so, put a spotlight on the country's reading crisis.
The Department of Basic Education has since responded with early grade reading programmes and a 2025 Reading Literacy Strategy, whilst the 2030 Reading Panel continues to track progress against that crisis. Currently, their findings demonstrate that only 30% of learners in Grades 1 to 3 are reading at grade level in their home language and as many as 25% of those Grade 3 learners cannot read a single word.
Some of the challenges around literacy development are not confined to South Africa. Globally, new Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) results show 15-year-olds reading at their lowest levels since testing began in 2000, a decline researchers link to rising screen time — and to AI.
This does not mean that AI's utility is dismissed in education, however, there is a necessary distinction that needs to be noted in its use."Cognitive offloading" differs from "cognitive delegation". The first is the act of using a tool to lighten a task without replacing a learner's thinking, and the second is where AI takes over the interpretive work itself: evaluating evidence, constructing arguments, and making sense of a text.
This is problematic for literacy development, because when reading comprehension is delegated instead of supported, it doesn't just change how students work, it changes what, and if anything at all, is being understood.
AI can scaffold reading, but it cannot substitute for a culture in which people read and think for themselves.
Tania Kliphuis, Manager of Literacy Projects at the Otto Foundation, warns that South Africa's necessary focus on technical decoding skills, as it pertains to education, risks crowding out reading for pleasure. She demonstrates this significance by explaining that children who read for pleasure end up with stronger vocabularies, broader general knowledge and show qualities like empathy, curiosity and openness.
Still, simply choosing to pick up a book and read is harder than it sounds in an under-resourced country such as South Africa. With 43% of households with young children owning no books at all, accessibility is a genuine concern. School libraries can offer choice, representation and a space where reading is truly enjoyed, not simply assessed.
Which is where 17-year-old Jenovic Lumu comes in. His Johannesburg initiative, Next Chapter Jozi, addresses literacy as an accessibility issue, which is happening outside the formal education system. Next Chapter Jozi has collected roughly 2 500 children's books for under-resourced schools in Berea, Hillbrow and Yeoville with 15 000 more earmarked for donation.
Lumu's efforts emphasise that building literacy is not only about a child's ability to read and decode words; it's about ensuring they find value in reading, and continue to pick up books and engage in critical thought.
Educational literacy in South Africa should be about exactly that. Children need to be encouraged to have the curiosity to keep reading, question what they encounter and form ideas of their own. That's true literacy development.
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*Image courtesy of Canva
**Information sourced from Department of Basic Education, Frontiers in Education, Daily Maverick, Reuters and Good News Guy