Learning for development: Learners’ perceptions of the impact of the Kha Ri Gude Literacy Campaign

Abstract This article describes how the Kha Ri Gude Literacy Campaign in South Africa utilized an enriched literacy curriculum in enliterating 4.7 million adult learners who, as a result of the legacy of apartheid in South Africa, had little or no education. The article uses a mixed-methods approach—mixing quantitative and qualitative data—to determine what adult learners considered to be important benefits of initial literacy. Moreover, it explores the extent to which these benefits correlated with the developmental intent which aimed, by using MDG/SDG inspired themes, to impact on the social, economic and developmental opportunities that might be afforded by literacy acquisition. The article analyzes the responses obtained from a sample of 485,941 literacy learners to a 24-item instrument which sought to establish learner perceptions of the benefits (or lack thereof) of their participation in the literacy campaign. The high rate of positive responses showed that the majority of the learners perceived the campaign to have benefited them with regard to their feelings of self-confidence, their ability to participate in community matters, increased understandings of health issues, increased involvement in income generation, technological abilities, as well as in increasing their appetite for lifelong learning. The quantitative findings were triangulated with the findings of the learner interviews conducted with learners who had completed the program in the previous two to five years. In addition to focusing on the responses of learners who perceived the campaign to have had positive impacts, further quantitative analyses were conducted on the responses of those learners who gave negative feedback. It is believed that both the positive impact and the non-impactful findings reported in this article will allow for a closer tailoring of literacy programs in order to maximize their developmental potential.