Centre for the Promotion of Literacy in sub‐Saharan Africa (CAPOLSA)
Research summary
The aim of the CAPOLSA project is to establish a strong literacy centre with international visibility and impact, specifically in African countries facing similar challenges to Zambia. The literacy training approach is based on the Grapho Learning Initiative and the innovative and efficient digital-based learning game, GraphoGame that has been developed based on scientific studies led by Professor Heikki Lyytinen.
THe project was funded by the Finnish Ministry of Foreign Affairs through the HEI ICI programme. Project Award Number: HEI ICI‐2010‐P1‐000153
Description
CAPOLSA activities include:
1. Collaborative training of experts who will in turn be able to instruct teachers in the colleges, and their
activities associated with reading instruction
2. Building a technology support system of reading instruction (Graphogame) and capacity of the centre’s
personnel to be able to support its wide usage in Zambia. A special emphasis will be put on the transition from
the acquisition of reading skills in familiar local languages, to the acquisition of reading skills in English.
3. Collaborative development of facilities and expertise needed for the production of written material in
familiar languages motivating children to apply their initial reading skills to help them to develop a functional
reading skill.
The project brings together a capacity building agenda (post‐graduate training) at Zambia’s leading university, a requirement by the Zambian government for policy-oriented research and development in a priority field of public education (promotion of universal basic literacy), and an emerging programme of international research
collaboration on optimising conditions for initial literacy acquisition.
Key Objectives: The final goal of the project is to build an efficiently functioning resource centre for supporting
African children in learning to read the language they are able to speak. Throughout the project, the centre will
be supported in order to have the ability and facilities to
1. populate databases with the connections between written and spoken languages (ie. appropriate units of
the orthographies of African languages (during the first stage it will be those of Bantu‐languages),
2. train teachers and their teachers about optimal ways to instruct children in acquiring reading skills
3. distribute and support the opportunity to use technology‐supported learning environments for reading
acquisition among children who have not otherwise learned to read before the end of the first grade
4. guarantee the effective creation of reading material for children who have learned the basic reading skill in
order to help them acquire functional reading skill
The effective working Centre’s mandate will be to support
1. promotion of support for children’s acquisition of literacy in Zambian languages among parents, families and pre‐school teachers
2. provision of technical support for the curriculum and instruction to the various training institutions mandated to prepare teachers for initial literacy instruction in the nation’s lower primary school grades
3. creation, collation and dissemination of child‐friendly reading materials in the Zambian languages used as media for initial literacy instruction, and
4. development of guidelines for the harmonisation of orthographies across the different Bantu languages as used in the various countries of sub‐Saharan Africa
5. specialised, advanced education of a critical mass of expertise at UNZA for the conduct of such research.
As the Centre is piloting and developing best practises for supporting literacy that can be applied in other African countries as well, the beneficiaries in the longer term will be children throughout Africa and possibly developing countries globally.
More information
Research info
Research title
Centre for the Promotion of Literacy in sub‐Saharan Africa (CAPOLSA)
Research timeline
1.6.2011 - 1.12.2012
Keywords
centre of expertise GraphoGame learning games Literacy mobile learning sub-Saharan Africa teaching technology-enhanced learning
Region
Africa
Countries
Finland, Zambia
Institution
University of Jyväskylä
Agora Center
Jyväskylä, Finland
Head of research
Heikki Lyytinen
Research team
Professor Heikki Lyytinen, Professor Robert Serpell,
Head of Planning & Development Päivi Fadjukoff
Partners
University of Zambia, Lusaka, Zambia
Contact information
Päivi Fadjukoff
paivi.fadjukoff@jyu.fi
Open link
Record last updated
22.5.2014