Does No One Notice?

THE Namibian of January 19 2007 published an article by Andrew Clegg titled ‘Nothing Short Of Radical Reform Will Solve the Educational Problem’.

His premises and arguments, which are insightful and reflect his years of professional experience, have prompted me to look at the education crisis from a slightly different perspective. My presentation should be viewed in the light of the fact that analyses and critiques of a complex social project such as a national educational system are always as multi-faceted as the phenomenon itself.To illustrate the extent of the crisis, Clegg notes that, ‘probably as many as 40 per cent [of school children], so we hear, reach the end of grade 7 effectively illiterate and innumerate.’ Although this is alarming, the situation might be even worse! In a publication that is well known in educational circles, the second report of the Southern and Eastern Africa Consortium for Monitoring Educational Quality (2005: unpaged), comparing 15 African countries and analysing data gathered in 2000 for grade six students, reported that, in reading, Namibian learners scored relatively poorly and half a standard deviation below the SACMEQ average … In 1995, 23 per cent of learners reached the minimum level and 8 per cent the desirable level of reading mastery.In 2000, these figures had declined and 17 per cent reached the minimum level and only 7 per cent the desirable level.Because reading ability affects every aspect of learning, it is not surprising to find that other subjects are also affected: In mathematics, learners at Levels 1 and 2 could not be said to be numerate.Nearly 77 per cent of learners nationally were in these two categories.In Caprivi, Kavango, Ohangwena, Omaheke, Omusati, Oshikoto and Oshana, the number of learners who could not be said to be numerate ranged from 80 to 90 per cent.This is a very serious problem.(same page) Whatever the actual parameters of the problem are, just about everyone agrees that it is runs deep and has severe consequences.That, of course, is why the authorities have embarked on a huge initiative like ETSIP.Why are so many school children illiterate and innumerate, and why does the problem seem to get worse with every year that passes? Clegg’s analysis suggests that one of the main reasons is that the curriculum remains much the same as in the pre-Independence period, when, in his words, it was ‘tailor-made to generate failure’.He suggests that it should be drastically reformed to be more flexible and differentiated, and proposes ‘curricula which operate simultaneously at different levels in a particular grade.’ Although this is ideal – in fact, it is the way that teachers really should treat the children in their care – I think that it might be too ambitious for Namibia at this time.I say this because I think that a significant number of teachers in Namibia are not learning-centred.(Note: I said learning-centred, not learner-centred!) If this is the case, then no amount of curriculum reform is going to make a meaningful difference.To explain why I say that there is a dearth of learning-centredness, let us look at what seems to be happening to a lot of children in a lot of schools.Clegg estimates that ‘probably as many as 40 per cent [of school children] …reach the end of grade 7 effectively illiterate and innumerate.’ Although the figure could be higher, let us accept 40 per cent as a working figure.If 40 per cent of a grade one class of, say, 40 children are illiterate and innumerate at the end of their first year, that means that 16 children are in that condition.If they are still illiterate and innumerate by the end of grade 7, then those 16 children have passed through about ten teachers’ hands along the way.If this has happened in, say, 100 schools, then 1 600 illiterate and innumerate children have passed through the hands of 1 000 teachers for about 900 hours per child per year, or about 6 300 hours per child from Grade 1 to Grade 7.If this has been going on for, say, ten years (actually, for even longer) in even more schools, then …well, I am sure that you get the picture! This raises another question: Why are so many children allowed to go on and on, illiterate and innumerate as they are, hour after hour and year after year? Does no one notice or does no one care? I think that the answer is that no one notices because, in the case of literacy, a lot of teachers do not know how to teach reading and writing and/or do not actually know what good reading is.I will not comment about numeracy because I have not had much to do with it.However, there is a strong relationship between numeracy and literacy, with the result that children with poor literacy are likely to have poor numeracy as well.While I was doing research for my PhD during the mid-1980s, I visited about 50 primary schools in central Namibia to interview teachers.At about 30 of these schools, I observed reading classes in the lower grades and saw that most of the teachers were not actually teaching reading.Instead, they used the classes for vocabulary and grammar lessons, for discoursing about the general subject of the story, or for listening comprehension.Sometimes the teacher read from the book and the children chorused after him or her.When active ‘reading’ did take place, it took the form of children taking turns to stand up and read a few lines aloud, usually in broken and halting fashion.I even come across the apocryphal situation during a ‘reading’ lesson of children chorus-repeating after the teacher while some books were upside-down on the desks.Reading tests took the form of children standing at the teacher’s table one by one, reading aloud.The children usually finger-pointed their way along the text and awkwardly sounded out individual phonemes or syllables in ways that did not resemble meaningful language.The schools that I visited were randomly selected and therefore it was likely that they reflected a representative cross-section of practices.In fact, this was confirmed by people who knew the field much better than I did.After Independence, I was the first chairperson of the English language subject committee for the Ministry of Education.At almost every meeting – they were held on a quarterly basis – I asked what was being done to establish an effective reading programme.I never got a satisfactory answer.Later, I was a member of the broad committee that established the Basic Education Teaching Diploma (BETD), which became the central plank of reform in teacher training.As chairperson of the committee that designed the English syllabus for the BETD, I thought that it was unfortunate that syllabus components on phonics and reading methods were mostly disallowed, on the grounds that the BETD should include a lot of didactics and less content.In short, in the years after Independence, longer-serving teachers did not have remedial programmes to improve their ability to teach reading, while newer teachers – the products of the BETD – were not in a better position than their older peers.Clegg refers to the fact that reading and writing skills seem to be ‘particularly bad in places where English has been the teaching language from grade 1’.This is not surprising, in view of Namibia’s flawed language policy for education.However, significant as it is, language will be a contributing factor and not a root cause.In summary, my analysis is that a lot of teachers neither know how to teach reading, nor know what good reading is.Whatever the reason, why has so much time, money and effort been put into such a vital national project as education without addressing the basics of all basics, namely the ‘3 Rs’? As Clegg says, ‘Reading, writing and arithmetic are the basic skills that children have to pick up in the first three years.If they have not mastered them by then, they get no further opportunity in the curriculum.’ Exactly! So why have these skills been so thoroughly ignored? I do not know.It puzzles me a lot.So, necessary as it is, I do not think that curriculum reform in itself will be effective, unless it is accompanied by a comprehensive programme
of teacher re-education in teaching reading, writing, and arithmetic.How this should be done, and how teachers and their professional organisations be consulted so that they support the initiative, is a vital question that should be addressed separately.Finally, I would like to refer to Clegg’s observation that the apartheid-era educational system was ‘tailor-made to create failure for the under-resourced majority and success for the privileged minority’.Although that was the past – a past that is not a memory for the current school-goers – it is worth asking whether it holds lessons for the present.How should we regard the current system, in which large numbers of children are effectively illiterate and innumerate in grades 6 and 7 – a situation that seems to be worsening year by year? Does it all happen by chance, or is this system also tailor-made for something? * Dr Brian Harlech-Jones was a professor and dean of faculty at the University of Namibia and at the Aga Khan University, Pakistan.At present he co-owns and manages a travel agency in Windhoek.My presentation should be viewed in the light of the fact that analyses and critiques of a complex social project such as a national educational system are always as multi-faceted as the phenomenon itself.To illustrate the extent of the crisis, Clegg notes that, ‘probably as many as 40 per cent [of school children], so we hear, reach the end of grade 7 effectively illiterate and innumerate.’ Although this is alarming, the situation might be even worse! In a publication that is well known in educational circles, the second report of the Southern and Eastern Africa Consortium for Monitoring Educational Quality (2005: unpaged), comparing 15 African countries and analysing data gathered in 2000 for grade six students, reported that, in reading, Namibian learners scored relatively poorly and half a standard deviation below the SACMEQ average … In 1995, 23 per cent of learners reached the minimum level and 8 per cent the desirable level of reading mastery.In 2000, these figures had declined and 17 per cent reached the minimum level and only 7 per cent the desirable level. Because reading ability affects every aspect of learning, it is not surprising to find that other subjects are also affected: In mathematics, learners at Levels 1 and 2 could not be said to be numerate.Nearly 77 per cent of learners nationally were in these two categories.In Caprivi, Kavango, Ohangwena, Omaheke, Omusati, Oshikoto and Oshana, the number of learners who could not be said to be numerate ranged from 80 to 90 per cent.This is a very serious problem.(same page) Whatever the actual parameters of the problem are, just about everyone agrees that it is runs deep and has severe consequences.That, of course, is why the authorities have embarked on a huge initiative like ETSIP.Why are so many school children illiterate and innumerate, and why does the problem seem to get worse with every year that passes? Clegg’s analysis suggests that one of the main reasons is that the curriculum remains much the same as in the pre-Independence period, when, in his words, it was ‘tailor-made to generate failure’.He suggests that it should be drastically reformed to be more flexible and differentiated, and proposes ‘curricula which operate simultaneously at different levels in a particular grade.’ Although this is ideal – in fact, it is the way that teachers really should treat the children in their care – I think that it might be too ambitious for Namibia at this time.I say this because I think that a significant number of teachers in Namibia are not learning-centred.(Note: I said learning-centred, not learner-centred!) If this is the case, then no amount of curriculum reform is going to make a meaningful difference.To explain why I say that there is a dearth of learning-centredness, let us look at what seems to be happening to a lot of children in a lot of schools.Clegg estimates that ‘probably as many as 40 per cent [of school children] …reach the end of grade 7 effectively illiterate and innumerate.’ Although the figure could be higher, let us accept 40 per cent as a working figure.If 40 per cent of a grade one class of, say, 40 children are illiterate and innumerate at the end of their first year, that means that 16 children are in that condition.If they are still illiterate and innumerate by the end of grade 7, then those 16 children have passed through about ten teachers’ hands along the way.If this has happened in, say, 100 schools, then 1 600 illiterate and innumerate children have passed through the hands of 1 000 teachers for about 900 hours per child per year, or about 6 300 hours per child from Grade 1 to Grade 7.If this has been going on for, say, ten years (actually, for even longer) in even more schools, then …well, I am sure that you get the picture! This raises another question: Why are so many children allowed to go on and on, illiterate and innumerate as they are, hour after hour and year after year? Does no one notice or does no one care? I think that the answer is that no one notices because, in the case of literacy, a lot of teachers do not know how to teach reading and writing and/or do not actually know what good reading is.I will not comment about numeracy because I have not had much to do with it.However, there is a strong relationship between numeracy and literacy, with the result that children with poor literacy are likely to have poor numeracy as well.While I was doing research for my PhD during the mid-1980s, I visited about 50 primary schools in central Namibia to interview teachers.At about 30 of these schools, I observed reading classes in the lower grades and saw that most of the teachers were not actually teaching reading.Instead, they used the classes for vocabulary and grammar lessons, for discoursing about the general subject of the story, or for listening comprehension.Sometimes the teacher read from the book and the children chorused after him or her.When active ‘reading’ did take place, it took the form of children taking turns to stand up and read a few lines aloud, usually in broken and halting fashion.I even come across the apocryphal situation during a ‘reading’ lesson of children chorus-repeating after the teacher while some books were upside-down on the desks.Reading tests took the form of children standing at the teacher’s table one by one, reading aloud.The children usually finger-pointed their way along the text and awkwardly sounded out individual phonemes or syllables in ways that did not resemble meaningful language.The schools that I visited were randomly selected and therefore it was likely that they reflected a representative cross-section of practices.In fact, this was confirmed by people who knew the field much better than I did.After Independence, I was the first chairperson of the English language subject committee for the Ministry of Education.At almost every meeting – they were held on a quarterly basis – I asked what was being done to establish an effective reading programme.I never got a satisfactory answer.Later, I was a member of the broad committee that established the Basic Education Teaching Diploma (BETD), which became the central plank of reform in teacher training.As chairperson of the committee that designed the English syllabus for the BETD, I thought that it was unfortunate that syllabus components on phonics and reading methods were mostly disallowed, on the grounds that the BETD should include a lot of didactics and less content.In short, in the years after Independence, longer-serving teachers did not have remedial programmes to improve their ability to teach reading, while newer teachers – the products of the BETD – were not in a better position than their older peers.Clegg refers to the fact that reading and writing skills seem to be ‘particularly bad in places where English has been the teaching language from grade 1’.This is not surprising, in view of Namibia’s flawed language policy for education.However, significant as it is, language will be a contributing factor and not a root cause. In summary, my analysis is that a lot of teachers neith
er know how to teach reading, nor know what good reading is.Whatever the reason, why has so much time, money and effort been put into such a vital national project as education without addressing the basics of all basics, namely the ‘3 Rs’? As Clegg says, ‘Reading, writing and arithmetic are the basic skills that children have to pick up in the first three years.If they have not mastered them by then, they get no further opportunity in the curriculum.’ Exactly! So why have these skills been so thoroughly ignored? I do not know.It puzzles me a lot.So, necessary as it is, I do not think that curriculum reform in itself will be effective, unless it is accompanied by a comprehensive programme of teacher re-education in teaching reading, writing, and arithmetic.How this should be done, and how teachers and their professional organisations be consulted so that they support the initiative, is a vital question that should be addressed separately.Finally, I would like to refer to Clegg’s observation that the apartheid-era educational system was ‘tailor-made to create failure for the under-resourced majority and success for the privileged minority’.Although that was the past – a past that is not a memory for the current school-goers – it is worth asking whether it holds lessons for the present.How should we regard the current system, in which large numbers of children are effectively illiterate and innumerate in grades 6 and 7 – a situation that seems to be worsening year by year? Does it all happen by chance, or is this system also tailor-made for something? * Dr Brian Harlech-Jones was a professor and dean of faculty at the University of Namibia and at the Aga Khan University, Pakistan.At present he co-owns and manages a travel agency in Windhoek.