The reading crisis of SA children continues unabated with remote prospects of improvement. According to Nick Spaull, an education economist at Stellenbosch University and a member of the 2030 Reading Panel Secretariat, it will be the year 2098 when all school children in SA learn to read for meaning, on our current trajectory of improvement.

The panel aims to ensure that all grade 4 children in SA can read for meaning by 2030. Its report said schoolchildren have lost about 1.3 years of schooling since the pandemic started due to school closures and rotational timetables. According to researchers, these learning losses are equivalent to wiping out 6.5 years of learning progress...