A 40-year old adult literacy NGO, the largest provider of adult basic education and training (Abet) in South Africa, has been forced to shut down its provincial offices and retrench more than half its staff after the government withdrew a major contract.
Andrew Miller, the chief executive of Project Literacy, said on Friday that the former director-general of the Department of Higher Education and Training, Mary Metcalfe, had awarded the contract, on behalf of the National Skills Fund (NSF), in September but that it had been withdrawn three weeks later. Her response arrived a year and a half after the organisation submitted the proposal in March last year.
But Mvuyisi Macikama, the NSF’s chief executive, said the department had not withdrawn any contracts. Instead a review of 15 contracts was under way. Macikama said he would be sorry if any of the organisations involved collapsed.
Project Literacy’s services range from adult basic education to teacher training and curriculum development.
Miller said that in the 2009 financial year 35 000 individuals had received training in literacy and numeracy skills.
He said that 47 out of the 78 staff members would be retrenched and that all seven regional offices would be closed.
This comes at a time when the country is in danger of slipping further down the global competitiveness rankings with one of the worst education ratings in the world.
Recently Stellenbosch University published a report that said illiteracy was costing the economy as much as R550 billion a year. It said the gross domestic product would be 23 percent to 30 percent higher if the quality of schooling was where it should be – a level befitting a middle-income country.
Bertus Matthee, the acting national director for the Read Educational Trust, said the loss of Project Literacy’s national structure was a “disaster” for literacy in South Africa.
“There are thousands of youths who have left school early… Now that the Higher Education Department is trying to get its act together it is going to need NGOs to get to the people on the ground. The department doesn’t have the infrastructure,” Matthee said.
Miller said without the NSF contract, which had been reduced to R21 million from R90m at the request of his organisation, the NGO’s costs would exceed its income. It cost the organisation R1.2m monthly to maintain its facilities.
Macikama said a task team had been appointed by the National Treasury to review the fit of the contracts with the national skills development strategy to be launched in April next year. He said the team would present its findings next week.
“We have no intention whatsoever to put an end to an organisation with so much experience in adult literacy,” Macikama said.
The organisation had at least 14 other contracts running, but Miller said these were minuscule in comparison with the withdrawn contract.