Sue Blaine
2 April 2007
Johannesburg — PUPILS and teachers from 22 Gauteng primary schools will benefit from a black economic empowerment deal between publishing group Macmillan SA and nongovernmental organisation READ Educational Trust.
The deal gave READ a 15% shareholding in Macmillan SA, and the dividends would be ploughed into teacher training and teaching resources for the schools to advance their performance in language and literacy, said READ founder and national director Cynthia Hugo.
It would also launch the READ Empowerment Trust, to be run by a board of three representatives from the schools, and one representative each from Macmillan, READ and the Gauteng education department.
Macmillan Education chairman Chris Paterson said the READ transaction was the most important part of Macmillan SA's new empowerment structure.
The publisher is selling 25% of its shares to empowerment beneficiaries: 5% to its own employees, 70% of whom are black, Indian and coloured, 5% to a trust for black, Indian and coloured authors, and READ's 15%.
Macmillan SA had 120-150 "black" authors (fiction and nonfiction) among the 1000-odd South African authors on its books. As this base was so low, dividends from shares not bought would go to developing "black" authorship in SA through various training mechanisms, he said.
READ Empowerment Trust's dividends would repay the trust's share loan. The rest would go to training and teaching resources.
Hugo said the 22 schools were all taking strides in teaching children reading and writing skills.
Lily Mbatha, headmistress of Boepakitso Primary School in Diepkloof, said: "We are very excited because we realise how much this project has to offer us. Language is the vehicle we use to teach. Investing in the development of (pupils') language skills is key to ensuring our children are competent in all subjects."
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