Publications

The National Reading Barometer 2023: Technical Measures Report provides the technical foundation for South Africa's first National Reading Barometer, an initiative designed to monitor the health of the country's reading ecosystem and support evidence-informed decision-making. Developed through a partnership led by the Nal'ibali Trust and the National Library of South Africa, the report combines findings from the 2023 National Reading Survey with national and international datasets to establish a baseline against which future progress can be measured. 

Advisory note written as a contribution to the Background Report for the 2024 meeting of the Reading Panel 2030.

The NRB was featured as a case study of good collaborative practice in the IPASA Collaboration in Education in South Africa: Themes and Insights for Funders (2025), recognising its networked governance model and role in building a shared, publicly owned evidence base for the literacy sector.

2023 National Reading Survey - Key findings: 

1. Access to reading materials 
2. Reading with children
3. Digital reading
4. Languages
5. Libraries 
6. Motivation and reader identity

This brief is written for those actors who plan, fund, produce and distribute reading materials in the South African reading ecosystem. This includes actors in government, publishers, authors and self-publishers, literacy NGOs, and donors (foundations, corporate, etc.) who support reading material production and distribution.

The brief extracts insights and recommendations from the larger National Reading Barometer project. The National Reading Barometer project seeks to spark debate and enable collective decision-making around shared priorities and collaborative action in support of literacy and reading.

This special issue brief summarises the 2023 National Reading Survey and National Reading Barometer findings related to reading and children. This includes adults reading with young children (10 and under) and older children (11-18) reading for themselves.

It is written for institutions implementing programmes in early childhood development, primary and secondary education, and generally working with children and caregivers to improve children’s lives and opportunities. This includes government institutions, civil society organisations in the literacy and reading sector and corporate funders of literacy and education activities.

This special issue brief summarises the 2023 National Reading Survey and National Reading Barometer findings related to libraries.

Public libraries are crucial institutions for the support of reading cultures across the world. This is especially true for countries like South Africa, where high levels of inequality and poverty, coupled with a commercialised reading materials industry (selling locally published and imported materials/ books/ magazines/ etc), makes owning books and other reading materials unaffordable for the majority of the population.

The National Reading Barometer project describes adult reading culture and the broader reading ecosystem in South Africa. The project includes two components: the National Reading Survey (NRS), a nationally representative survey of the adult population aged 16+, and the National Reading Barometer (NRB), a new compilation of secondary datasets that assesses the overall health of the South African reading ecosystem. The summary report shares high-level findings from the project and recommendations for further research.