Information Literacy Education in Higher Education Institutions in South Africa

Many students in South Africa come from a disadvantaged background and lack information literacy skills needed in academic studies. There is an underprovision of computer and internet facilities as well as library resources. Only 7% of schools in South Africa have a functional library. Challenges are enormous. Information literacy skills are very important to information/library science students. As librarians they will be the ones that will help their user communities to become information literate and to act as facilitators of learning. Information skills tuition is not just about learning about specific tools, but a process that involves identifying an information need, finding and critically using resources to meet that need, managing the information found as well as understanding the information environment. Developing information skills for lifelong learning is the ultimate goal, as Pinto, Cordon & Diaz (2010) states: "to create people who learn throughout their entire lives, and who are capable of resolving their information needs by finding, evaluating and using information to resolve problems or take decisions." An overabundance of information and rapid developments in information technology information necessitate approaches and tools to satisfy information needs. In this paper the standards and benchmarks with which to measure information literacy competencies will be highlighted briefly. Approaches and tools taught to information science students at a leading South Africa university will be discussed. The focus is on the following learning outcomes: the student should be able to plan an information task, to retrieve information for an information task, to organize the information, to use various reading and thinking skills and to complete an information task. These approaches and tools can also be applied in information literacy training and staff development programs in the workplace.