The Minister of Basic Education, Ms Siviwe Gwarube, has officially launched the Funda Uphumelele National Survey (FUNS), a study designed to support the DBEs ongoing efforts to improve reading proficiency in the early grades. The launch took place at the DBE Conference Centre in Pretoria on 10 November 2025. For the first time, South Africa now has nationally and provincially representative data showing the percentage of learners reaching foundational reading benchmarks in all 11 official languages by the end of Grades 1, 2, and 3. The survey assessed 28,000 learners across 710 schools.

FUNS results show that in Grade 1, only 31% of learners achieved the Home Language Reading Benchmark, defined as reading 40 correct letter sounds per minute.
In Grades 2 and 3, just over 30% met their respective benchmarks, which are based on oral reading fluency (words correct per minute in a passage). Alarmingly, 15% of Grade 3 learners are still unable to read a single word. The survey highlights significant inequalities by language, province, gender, and socio-economic status. Learners in English and in wealthier provinces such as Gauteng and the Western Cape are more likely to reach benchmarks, but this advantage is largely due to socio-economic differences. Children in quintile 5 schools are twice as likely to reach reading benchmarks than children in no-fee schools (quintile 1-3). Gender disparities are also striking where the FUNS results showed that across several languages, girls are twice as likely as boys to reach their reading benchmarks.

In response to the FUNS findings, Minister Gwarube indicated that learning to read is a gateway skill that unlocks access to all other forms of learning and knowledge. “The results of Funda Uphumelele confirm that we still face serious challenges in the early grades. Too many children are not yet reaching the reading fluency benchmarks needed to be on track to read with comprehension by Grade 4. But the good news is that we now understand much more precisely where the problem lies and therefore what to do about it”, said Minister Gwarube.

Reflecting on the Basic Education Sector’s progress in improving reading proficiency amongst learners in the early grades, Director of Reading, Dr Nompumelelo Mohohlwane, said that the DBE has been leading the development of reading benchmarks in all 11 official spoken languages since 2018: “These benchmarks specify the foundational reading skills that children need to acquire by the ends of Grades 1, 2 and 3 as requisite skills required for them to read with comprehension by Grade 4”. These benchmarks are an investment into African languages, providing teachers with linguistically relevant milestones to work towards. The Funda Uphumelele National Survey builds on this long-term work of developing reading benchmarks in all 11 official languages.

Minister Gwarube outlined how the Department will use FUNS results to drive improvement at three levels of the education system: System Level, to monitor progress nationally, provincially, and across all languages; District and School Support Level, to strengthen accountability through the rollout of language-appropriate reading assessments for subject advisers and schools; and at Classroom Level, to equip teachers with diagnostic tools that identify learners at risk and guide targeted remedial instruction. “We are not measuring for the sake of measuring. The reading benchmarks, and the Funda Uphumelele work, are designed to inform real change at 3 levels: system, district, and classroom,” the Minister said.

The Funda Uphumelele initiative reflects an unprecedented collaboration across universities, linguists, and development partners. Twenty-five linguists from 11 universities co-developed and validated the reading assessment instruments. Key partners include the Zenex Foundation; FEM Foundation; UNICEF; the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation; Old Mutual Foundation; Optima Foundation; World Bank; and the Michael and Susan Dell Foundation.

Both the survey and the Minister’s remarks reaffirmed the critical role of home language literacy. “When children have a solid foundation in their home language, it becomes easier to build bilingual proficiency,” Minister Gwarube explained. FUNS provides South Africa with a baseline for measuring progress in foundational reading skills. Future rounds of the survey which are planned for 2029 and beyond, will track improvements and guide the next phase of literacy reform. Minister Gwarube concluded her address with a call to action: “Today’s launch is not just the release of a report; it is a call to refocus our attention and to do what is needed to make sure that our children learn to read with meaning by the end of Grade 3. If we can achieve that, so much more becomes possible: better learning in the higher grades, greater success in matric, and more opportunities in life”.