In the last two days the financial team was busy with the financial report of 2022/23. Here in South Africa the finance year ends in March. This report is a huge task because on it depends if we get a clean audit and satisfy our donors. Most of our donors have their own requirements regarding the financial report. So for each one there has to be drafted a special report which means there are eight of them to be prepared and finally to be reconciled with the overall report. We are glad that this year this big task has not to be done while all other activities are running. The schools, After School Programs and the preschools have closed for the school holidays from 24.3.-11.4.2023.
Autumn has settled in, the days are shorter and in the morning and evening it is a bit chilly. During the day it is still warm and we enjoy the warm weather.
We are glad that all work in the first quarter of schooling could be finished. The task to get 253 After school children assessed to find out if they are literate, was not easy. During that time we had a lot of rain, some assessments had to be postponed due to rain. In Modimola, where I did the assessments together with Ketsone , our driver, we had to stop because the rain on the tin roof was so loud that we could not hear the reading of the children. Our worst expectations proofed to be correct: Out of 253 children in Grade 1-6 that we have in our seven After School Programs 182 are not competent in reading. This is equivalent to 82%!
In February a study was published that all children in the Primary School after COVID 19 in South Africa have dropped in terms of their skills. In this study it is confirmed that all Primary School children are approximately one to two years behind in their skills due to the COVID 19 restrictions. More than 80% of learners in Grade 4 were not able to read for meaning which is totally in line with our own findings. Our After school childcare workers are busy teaching the alphabet and the phonograms now. We will assess the progress they made in June before the winter holidays.
Thank you for all your financial support and prayers, they are still necessary and help us not to give up facing this huge task of teaching children to read and write.
Christel Hermann