There seems to be no end in sight to the education crisis in SA if the recent release of the Progress in International Reading Literacy Study (PIRLS) 2021 report is anything to go by. The report revealed that 81% of Grade 4 pupils could not read for meaning.

This means only less than 20% of our 10-year olds are able to read. In 2016, this figure stood at 78%, which means the country is regressing as far as reading outcomes are concerned. Worse still, the study found that 56% of South African grade 6 pupils cannot read for meaning when tested on the same grade 4 evaluation...