3 600 Grade 7 Learners flex literacy muscles this week

In order to measure just how bad this crisis is, and to find ways to counter this as children enter high school, 3 600 Grade 7 learners around the country will put their literacy skills to the test on Thursday 11 October 2018. They will be taking the South African Institute of Chartered Accountants annual Grade 7 Quiz.

‘South African children are in the midst of a literacy crisis,’ says Gugu Makhanya, SAICA’s Senior Executive: Transformation & Growth. ‘Last year, the Progress in International Reading Literacy Study report that measured global literacy levels between 2011 and 2016, found that 78% of the pupils who participated in the South African leg of the study were illiterate. This placed our country last out of the 50 countries that were reviewed. Add to this the fact that the quality of the country’s maths remains among the lowest in the world, and the future knock-on effects of this crisis are immense.’

Makhanya continues: ‘After all, studies show that countries with more skilled workforces in both numerical and reading literacy terms tend to have citizens with higher pay and better employment prospects, which ultimately translates into higher rates of economic growth.’

As an institute with a vested interest in ensuring that South Africa has more citizens— especially young adults—who are numerically literate, this is a crisis that the South African Institute of Chartered Accountants (SAICA) is tackling head-on with its various Thuthuka school projects.

Explains Makhanya: ‘SAICA, together with the accounting profession, is constantly working to help create a South Africa where every person is equipped to make informed financial decisions. As an institute with a vested interest in increasing our country’s numerical literacy, we run a number of school projects aimed at helping to remedy the problems our education system faces. Among these projects is our SAICA Grade 7 Quiz.’

This year, almost 400 learners from 20 schools will write the quiz in each of the nine provinces, for a total of approximately 3 600 participants. Written in the form of a one-hour paper, SAICA has designed the quiz in such a way that learners will not only enjoy exhibiting their numeracy and literacy abilities, but will also appreciate their importance. This is of particular value to SAICA—and it is also vital for learners to master this if they wish to pursue a scarce-skills career like chartered accountancy.

According to Makhanya, ‘in gauging the literacy levels of some 3 600 learners from the 180 schools around the country through this initiative, the results of the 2018 SAICA Grade 7 Quiz will help the organisation strategically to focus its school projects in areas that we, together with provincial departments of education, flag as problematic when it comes to numeracy and reading.’

SAICA, South Africa’s pre-eminent accountancy body, is widely recognised as one of the world’s leading accounting institutes. The Institute provides a wide range of support services to more than 46 000 members and associates who are chartered accountants [CAs(SA)], as well as associate general accountants [AGAs(SA)] and accounting technicians [ATs(SA)], who hold positions as CEOs, MDs, board directors, business owners, chief financial officers, auditors and leaders in every sphere of commerce and industry, and who play a significant role in the nation’s highly dynamic business sector and economic development.

One of SAICA’s prime goals is to contribute towards strengthening the country’s economy by playing a significant and leading role in transformation and skills development. The Thuthuka Education Upliftment Project, a pioneering initiative to promote transformation in the profession, was launched in the Eastern Cape in 2002 and has grown into a national project.

Thuthuka’s objective is to transform the demographics of the profession to reflect those of the country in terms of race and gender, and provide educational support to African learners and students for the benefit of the profession, while simultaneously helping to uplift communities. Therefore, SAICA prides itself in leading the chartered accountancy profession as a socially responsible driver of business and skills development by supporting and encouraging enterprise development initiatives.

Ms Karin Jacobsen
Project Manager: Marketing and Communications
SAICA Nation Building Division
Tel: ‪011 621 6913
Email: ***@saica.co.za

Mr Kulani Chauke
Corporate Communications Co-Ordinator, Marketing & Communications (SAICA)
Tel: 011 479 0698
Email: ***@saica.co.za