Literacy for literacy sake is often doomed to failure. We need to focus on sustainable literacies to prevent regression, and learn from the experiences of other countries in Africa and else where. In many countries, where there is often a zero VAT rating on books and cheaper methods of publishing and printing, people revel in the printed word despite fears that television and computers are undermining reading. By contrast, South Africa is in a depressing. Even simple books are unaffordable for most people.
Most homes therefore have few, if any, books, magazines or newspapers.
Classrooms are often bare of books. Even the supply of ordinary textbooks has been rest ricted by financial constraints. Schools with well-used general libraries are extremely rare, and schools with adequate sets of class readers are hard to find. Reading in African languages appears, if anything, to be on the decline which, if true, is a ter rible warning to us all. Poor matric results are attributed to the poverty of students' reading skills.