Today we celebrate International Day of Education. We are joining The World Bank by using #StartTheStory to highlight the pivotal power that books, stories, and reading materials have in transforming lives and building better futures.
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Achieving literacy takes trained and supported teachers, a quality curriculum, and quality reading materials. Responsible publishing is not only creating clear, engaging text and illustrations, but producing proper design files and ensuring those files are stored for future use. The ELRN is committed to supporting partners to understand the processes and requirements to do this, while providing a space to upload and share these resources.
The World Bank’s Read@Home initiative works to bring books into as many homes as possible, to help set children up for success in school, and in life. The Read@Home Parent Engagement package contains a variety of practical guidance materials to encourage and support caregiver engagement in children’s reading activities at home.
In Africa, stories were and still continue to be passed down from generation to generation. Oral storytelling is our natural way of ‘preserving human knowledge, insight, and creativity’. Find our how AfLIA promotes World Read Aloud Day.
We spoke to some of the people and organizations that do critical work in the early literacy field about their work and how they plan to sustain the good work they are doing over time. Read the first in the three-part series here.
Enjoy this enlightening conversation with the founder and MD of Sub-Saharan Publishers, Akoss Ofori-Mensah about the current state of publishing in Africa, the impact of COVID-19 on the industry, and the value of book fairs.
African Library & Information Associations & Institutions (AfLIA) and NBA developed a course on early literacy development, specifically for librarians and library staff in Africa. In July 2022, the first batch of certificates was issued to the librarians who completed the course pilot!
In Northern Uganda, radio was the most accessible medium for young children when schools were closed
‘If we deliver radio content alongside a supportive human infrastructure and simple supplemental materials, then we can cost-effectively teach literacy in local languages and English to primary-age children when they are not in school, so that they achieve meaningful literacy competencies.’
This brief tells the story of Ubongo’s decision to switch from copyright protected licensing to Creative Commons (CC) licensing, why, and the possible ramifications for open educational resources (OER) more broadly.
Soma's Director, Demere Kitunga, has written a case study on her experimental work facilitating children to research and write original stories inspired by Tanzanian storytelling traditions.
Meet Akoss Ofori-Mensah of Sub-Saharan Publishers. She is working with Neil Butcher & Associates (NBA) to research the impact of open licensing on publishing business models by sharing books in underserved local Ghanaian languages.