Abstract

PIP: More than 3 million of South Africa's estimated 14.8 million women are illiterate. Their illiteracy hampers the ability of the women to educate their children or to acquire knowledge on important issues such as health care, nutrition, and family planning. Illiterate women also find it difficult to make informed decisions on financial matters, to choose a career for their children, and to plan and space their children. An UN report has indicated that women who have had seven or more years of schooling give birth to an average of 3.9 children, while women with no schooling give birth to almost 80% more children. Education results in a meaningful decline in fertility of two children per family and as much as three children per family in instances where women have reached secondary school level. Seven years of successful schooling for women has therefore become an international threshold for fertility decline. Promoting literacy is one of the strongest mechanisms for counteracting the population explosion in South Africa, a country in which almost half of the population is illiterate. It may even be held that an effective development program for any population is not possible without eradicating or reducing illiteracy. While the public sector in South Africa is responsible for eradicating or at least alleviating illiteracy in the country, women's organizations, church groups, and individuals could also contribute to the education of others. For example, parents could be encouraged to send their children to school and to keep them there as long as possible, employers could help finance the education of employees' children, and women's organizations could hold adult literacy courses.