By Lebone Rodah Mosima & Charmaine Ndlela
Basic education minister Siviwe Gwarube said on Monday that many pupils are failing to reach reading-fluency levels needed to read with comprehension by Grade 4.
Gwarube made the comments while launching the Funda Uphumelele National Survey (FUNS).
She said the baseline will, for the first time, measure across all 11 official languages the share of Grade 1–3 learners meeting language-specific fluency targets.
The benchmarks cover letter-sound recognition at the end of Grade 1 and oral reading fluency at the end of Grades 2 and 3, developed “language by language” over about six years, she said.
Gwarube said the results confirm “serious challenges in the early grades” but provide a clearer diagnosis of underlying skills such as phonemic awareness, vocabulary, and letter-sound association that enable comprehension.
“We are not measuring for the sake of measuring,” she said. “The value of good data: it gives us the power to act intelligently, not blindly.”
The minister said the survey emphasises home-language instruction because children “learn to read most effectively in the language they understand best,” adding that strong foundations make it easier to build bilingual proficiency, typically with English as a First Additional Language.
The department is “rolling out Mother Tongue-based Bilingual Education in Grades 4 and beyond,” she said.
According to Gwarube, the data will be used at three levels: to track progress nationally, provincially and by language; to strengthen accountability and support through district offices and school management using new, language-appropriate assessments; and in classrooms, where teachers will run diagnostic checks and target remediation.
She said the assessment instruments were developed by linguists and researchers from universities nationwide with department officials, and thanked philanthropic and multilateral partners that financed the work. “Today’s launch is not just the release of a report. It is a call to refocus our attention,” she said.
“We want all children to read with understanding by the end of Grade 3,” Gwarube said.
“When we conduct the next round of Funda Uphumelele, I am confident that we can see progress… in the daily experience of children who can now open a book and make sense of the world around them.”
INSIDE EDUCATION
