BOOK REVIEW 
Reading Literature at Junior Secondary School Level in Zimbabwe by 
Rosemary Moyana, University of Zimbabwe Publications, Harare 
2000, pb 193pp. ISBN 0-908307-90-X 
WHY DO PARENTS spend so much money to send their children to 61ite 
schools? A middle-class lecturer can spend one quarter of her salary on 
school fees on one child alone, without counting the cost of uniforms, 
books and other costs. It costs more than 15 times as much to send a 
child to an elite private urban day-school in Zimbabwe as to an 61ite 
government school in the formerly white areas, (that is, the low- and 
medium density suburbs). A government school in a high-density 
(all-black) residential area costs significantly less and a rural day school 
less still. The answer is simple. The kind of schools that exist in 
contemporary Zimbabwe reflect both our contemporary class structure 
and our colonial heritage: white schools and church schools produce the 
best school-leaving results (with boarding schools producing better 
results than day schools) and rural day schools (comprising around 
78% of the total number of secondary schools in Zimbabwe in 1989) 
producing the worst. And levels of funding and access to suitably 
trained teachers and resources in general follow this pattern. No parent 
who can afford an elite school can afford not to send her children to one, 
as school-leaving certification provides the most important gateway to 
tertiary education and all other achievements. 
These facts are common knowledge and Dr Moyana does not waste 
her time reiterating them. Instead she seeks to discover what the reading 
literacy levels at Form II level are in Zimbabwe, and to analysis reasons 
for the success or failure of different schools. This book is part of a 
study undertaken between 1989 and 1992 of the International 
Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievements Reading 
Literacy Research Study. The study sampled 31 countries world-wide. 
Of these only three, Nigeria, Botswana and Zimbabwe, were in Africa. 
The ultimate aim was to compare and contrast the reading literacy 
achievements of participating schools within Zimbabwe and between 
Zimbabwe and the other countries, and to make recommendations to 
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teachers on the basis of this research for improving reading literacy 
levels. 
The methodological section provides an exemplary model for social 
science research and is illuminating reading for its standards of 
exposition. For this non-statistically minded reader, tables were laid out 
with clarity and elegance and were easy to follow. The same is true of 
the analysis of research findings. This was richly detailed and full of 
fruitful insights that may not form the core of her general conclusions 
but could prove useful to many, from parents to publishers seeking to 
develop suitable leisure reading material for African students of this age. 
I have in mind the tables on pp 106-107. It appears that African students 
aged 14 are unique in listing music magazines as their first preference, 
and news and politics as their second (although the latter interest is 
shared with some Scandinavian countries and other Third-World 
countries). With so little research available on reading habits and tastes 
in Africa, such information is priceless. 
Voluntary reading habits provide clues as to the child's literacy level, 
as do the child's attitude towards reading (whether it is a chore or done 
for pleasure and intrinsic satisfaction, or whether children read only for 
instrumental goals and consider reading to be hard work). So do 
socio-economic facts about the child in the home; the language spoken 
at home, the education level of the child's parents, the adequacy of food 
as hungry children cannot do well in class, the student's aspirations and 
the amount of time spent watching television as well as homework 
habits. The report also studied the qualifications, teaching methods and 
length of teaching experience of teachers, together with their personal 
reading habits. Zimbabwe has fewer female teachers as a percentage of 
the total establishment than other countries. This is unfortunate for us as 
it appears that reading scores are generally higher in education systems 
where the number of female teachers is higher. Moyana recommends 
further research into this area. 
Finally a school questionnaire was administered concerning the 
resources available both within the school and in the community, including 
parental cooperation. The highest-scoring schools in Zimbabwe 
provide on average the following facilities for their students; a school 
166 VOLUME 16 NO 1 JANUARY 2001 JOURNAL OF SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT IN AFRICA
BOOK REVIEW 
library, a reading room for students, a student newspaper, a drama and 
debating club. In these, as in other respects, the highest scoring schools 
were those high fee-paying and formerly white schools in low-density 
suburbs. The score that these schools achieved across the range of tests 
and questionnaires to children, teachers and schools, matched those of 
the countries with the highest literacy scores for this age group, like 
Finland. No wonder aspiring parents start coaching their children in 
English at preschool level so they can pass one after another hurdle to 
get a place in one of these sought-after schools! 
Coming back to the literacy performance, five of the 31 schools 
tested in Zimbabwe achieved a level of reading literacy classified as 
"very good". These five were the top elite schools. The lowest-ranking 
schools across the whole survey found Zimbabwe, together with 
Botswana and Nigeria, at the bottom of the table. 
Given crushing poverty levels at individual and national level, 
together with the massive expansion of the education system in 1980 
prospects for Zimbabwean literacy look grim. I am among those who 
deplore the way our government recklessly invested in massive, 
unsuitable educational expansion without sufficient preparation to 
ensure that our high educational standards were maintained. I am now 
among the many who see no way to remedy this desperate situation and 
achieve the equity of provision that the educational expansion was 
meant to provide, and so dismally failed to do so, in the first place. 
Moyana, however, ends with an encouraging list of positive and detailed 
recommendations to improving literacy standards that involve creative 
thinking and making use of existing resources rather than a huge 
increase in the educational budget. For this clear-sighted appraisal she is 
to be applauded. All who are interested in the relationship between 
development and literacy and education in sub Saharan, 
English-speaking Africa, should make a point of getting hold of this 
book. 
REVIEWED BY CAROLE PEARCE, EDITOR 
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