South African Library Week will be celebrated nationally from 17 to 23 March 2025. The theme for South African Library Week (SALW) 2025 is: “Libraries for Sustainable Communities”.
The theme underscores the transformative role that libraries play in fostering sustainability, resilience, inclusivity and accessibility within communities. This theme is aligned with South Africa's commitment to sustainable development and equality, and it further reflects the library’s contributions to SDG 11 (Sustainable Cities and Communities) and SDG 4 (Quality Education). Libraries provide inclusive spaces and access to resources for all members of society, empowering communities through education, social support and opportunities for lifelong learning. Reading is, without doubt, the most important linguistic skill that needs to be developed in young children as it serves as a building block upon which all other learning takes place.
President Ramaphosa said in his State of the Nation Address (SoNA) on 6 February 2025, that: “Our immediate focus is to expand access to Early Childhood Development for every child. This will be achieved through registering and formalising existing ECD centres and ensuring that they have the facilities, training and material that they need to provide quality early learning. We will focus on ensuring that every child can read for meaning in the foundation phase to set them up for success in later years. To achieve this, we are implementing Mother Tongue-based Bilingual Education to improve literacy and numeracy outcomes, and rolling out lesson plans, reading books and other interventions that have been proven to work”.
Government urges parents and caregivers to read with their children, discuss stories and explore their children’s interests. One of the biggest developmental challenges facing the country is that many children are unable to read for meaning. Poor reading proficiency impacts negatively on learning in the foundation phase and beyond. Learners are encouraged to visit local libraries and explore bookstores to discover new authors, genres and topics that may be of interest to them as reading expands understanding and awareness whilst improving critical thinking and problem-solving skills.