South Africa

Operation Upgrade Programme

Country Profile

Population: 47 432 000 (2005 UIS)
Population living on less than 2 US$ a day: 34 % (2005 UIS)
HIV-rate in adults (15-49): 18.8 % (2005)

Context

There are an estimated 9 million people in South Africa who cannot read or write. Almost 2 million live in KwaZulu-Natal, a South African province that is home to the Zulu people. Operation Upgrade works from Durban, in KwaZulu-Natal. The major target group consists of 344 adult learners in KwaNibela, an isolated rural area with 26,000 inhabitants, over 500 km north of Durban. Only 52 of these learners are men. Most of the KwaNibela learners are between 25 and 50 years old, and they each support an average of 5 children and 2 adult dependants. The area is sand veldt, and there is little water. The people depend on social grants and funding from the men who work in the towns and mines. Traditional culture is strong in KwaNibela. HIV and AIDS are prevalent, the infrastructure is basic and development slow.

In addition, Operation Upgrade supports other literacy groups in KwaZulu-Natal and in South Africa as a whole by training literacy facilitators and providing low-cost teaching and learning materials.

9 indigenous languages are used in South Africa, including Zulu. Most literacy learners want to learn English, which is the language of the economy, and it is a challenge for facilitators to convince them that they must become literate in their mother tongue before learning English.

Operation Upgrade is the oldest literacy organization in South Africa. It is an established NGO with a history dating back over to its foundation in 1966. Operation Upgrade began as a Christian literacy organization. Over 13,000 literacy and numeracy facilitators were trained and hundreds of volunteers organized learner classes throughout the country using Operation Upgrade materials and facilitators. In 1991, Operation Upgrade moved from narrow definitions of literacy to an integrated, development-focused position in adult basic education. A new learner curriculum and new materials were developed. With the focus now on social change, the Christian message received less emphasis.

In 1996, President Nelson Mandela, together with the National Department of Education, presented Operation Upgrade with the 1996 Presidential Award for Adult Basic Education and Training. That same year, the Operation Upgrade first-language literacy facilitator training course received accreditation from the University of South Africa. In 2005, it received an international award for Innovation in Literacy from ProLiteracy Worldwide in the USA.

The Operation Upgrade literacy programme has changed a great deal over the 40 years of its existence. It has become an adult basic education programme that uses literacy as its vehicle for delivery. Today, the organization plans educational projects that centre on AIDS, family health education, nutrition and the generation of income.

Programme

Operation Upgrade‘s mission is to work for social change in South Africa through the provision of adult literacy and adult basic education. Its objective is to continue to develop and support a literacy curriculum that:

  1. addresses the need to become literate in the mother tongue before learning a second language;
  2. addresses learners’ everyday information and skill needs; and
  3. empowers learners to access their rights as outlined in the Constitution of South Africa.

The Operation Upgrade programme for adult literacy learners combines:

The programme focuses primarily on:

Operation Upgrade’s approach is to work through the literacy facilitators, training them to teach literacy, numeracy and English effectively. The facilitators learn to introduce discussion topics in their lessons to inform learners about relevant issues and increase their knowledge. Many topics are covered, ranging from gender issues and the importance of culture to home care for the sick, local government, clean water and how to manage a cash project. The facilitators are trained to take any issue, such as domestic abuse, and introduce it for discussion. Literacy learning is then based on the language used in the discussion. In this way, the learners acquire knowledge about many issues, not just reading and writing, and take personal or group action on key issues. The facilitators are given further training to enable them to promote community development as part of the literacy programme, looking specifically at livelihood needs and food security, as well as ways of handling the effects of AIDS on communities.

The biggest challenge for Operation Upgrade in recent years has been the need to harness the literacy classes to address the HIV and AIDS crisis. 288 literacy facilitators have been trained as AIDS facilitators, counsellors and home care workers. This has been very successful: prevention and care have been included as literacy lesson topics and there have been many good results. The learners have generally responded very positively to the information on AIDS provided in the lessons, saying “Why didn’t you tell us this before? Now we know why our children are dying”.

In order to respond to learners’ demand for income-generating skills, Operation Upgrade has developed two projects. Firstly, it has introduced the food tunnel system that helps them grow vegetables. Each food tunnel acts as a small business for a class of learners: it provides food for their families and, because it is an intensive production unit, it also provides vegetables to sell. A tunnel holds around 1000 spinach plants, although it can also be used to grow tomatoes, brinjals, green peppers and chillies. The learners practice how to manage a small business, organize work rosters, keep sales records, deposit money in the bank, and pack and market their product. Secondly, the organization has set up a leatherwork project, which started by training learners and setting up small craft projects.

All learners are assessed before being placed in their classes. In this way the classes can focus on developing first-language literacy in Zulu before beginning English and numeracy classes. The methodology used is a combination of two approaches: language experience, based on codes of topical interest to learners, and sound literacy skill development. Teachers adopt a problem-posing strategy and use role play, games, and group work in their classes. Learners are divided into ability groups.

The learners learn English through a communicative approach and each lesson involves four skills – speaking, writing, reading and listening. There is an emphasis on group work in pairs and small groups. Often, a topic is presented, discussed in Zulu, and then followed by exercises designed to develop English-language vocabulary, accompanied by reading and writing activities on that topic. Plenty of dialogue work, role play and learning games are used.

Operation Upgrade believes that numeracy facilitators should use a problem-posing approach with learners. The problems should be real-life problems which need numeracy for solution. If the adult learners advance a little towards understanding the need for a particular numeracy skill, this is a good start. The skill is then demonstrated, discussed, and practice is given. The skill as a whole is presented in steps, so that learners develop a sound knowledge of each aspect of numeracy work.

Most facilitators are excellent first-language literacy teachers; however, they struggle with numeracy and English. As a result, learning materials must be highly structured and thorough in order to provide the facilitators with the support that they need. Wherever possible, facilitators should come from the community in which they will be holding their classes. Operation Upgrade prefers to train facilitators who have been sponsored by other literacy work groups.

Operation Upgrade’s key funding partners and sources are the National Lottery, OXFAM Australia, the Rotary Club of Umhlanga, the Rotary District Literacy Committee and ProLiteracy Worldwide (USA).

Lessons learned

Reports by learners and other factors indicate that the KwaNibela programme has had a major impact on the lives of learners. It has received support from community leaders such as the Chief of the Municipality. The facilitators, all young people, have been the key to the project’s success. They have absorbed the training and gone beyond it to bring about social change. They are engaged in paid employment, which is unusual for young rural people, and they have made good use of their role and responsibilities.

Literacy on its own does not meet the immediate practical needs of the learners, which is why Operation Upgrade includes HIV/AIDS education, food security and livelihood development in their literacy programme. Learners will keep coming to class if: the facilitation methods used are varied and effective; the lessons are based on topics of importance to learners: the learning challenges are attainable (progress should follow a graded path so that people can see that they have been successful); the materials are related to learner needs, interests and lifestyle; the classes are supported by community leaders and local officials; and the learners can see that literacy learning has had a positive impact on their lives.

An ongoing challenge is that there is little reading material available in KwaNibela. Income-generating projects were introduced to help maintain literacy and numeracy skills. One of the long-term goals of creating a literate environment is to introduce community newspapers.

An adult basic education programme should take account of changing social needs. In ten years’ time, the programme is expected to have redirected its focus to other issues such as civics, human rights and justice. However, the need for livelihood and literacy components will remain.

Contact

Mrs Pat Dean
Operation Upgrade of South Africa
PO Box 371
Hyper by the Sea 4053
South Africa
e-mail: pat@operationupgrade.org.za