Department Of Basic Education And Sanlam Foundation Partner To Launch ECD Education Programme
Department Of Basic Education And Sanlam Foundation Partner To Launch ECD Education Programme. A staggering 57% of South African children in the Early Childhood Development (ECD) phase of their education are not on track for cognitive and/or physical development. To help change children’s futures, the Sanlam Foundation has redesigned its education strategy and launched its Education Programme, in partnership with the Department of Basic Education, to focus on ECD and primary school education in selected schools across four provinces.
Nozizwe Vundla, Head of the Sanlam Foundation, says, “Targeted education interventions are the only way to change the course of this country. Every child has the right to the best possible educational start. To begin with, our programme will reach 8,408 learners and 40 teachers across 20 ECD centres and 14 primary schools in KwaZulu-Natal, Western Cape, Eastern Cape and Gauteng. We’ll refine and scale as we start receiving the monitoring and evaluation data. This is a long-term commitment, through a pipeline approach, from ECD to primary and secondary school.”
“In South Africa, we have the three horsemen of the apocalypse – unemployment, inequality, and poverty. It’s not just joblessness, it’s unemployability that plagues us. Young people don’t have the basics of numeracy and literacy needed to be employable, or to run their own businesses. About two million children start grade R each year. Only one million of these children matriculate. ECD interventions are instrumental in addressing this in a sustainable way.” Vundla continued.
The programme will roll out in quintile 1, 2 and 3 schools and ECD centres that have met rigorous selection- and needs-analysis criteria. The shift to focus on a child’s earliest years of development is where Sanlam believes it can make maximal impact. Vundla adds, “Appropriate cognitive stimulation, nutrition, care, and health services during a child’s early years are linked to enhanced academic performance, lower repetition and dropout rates, reductions in juvenile crime rates, reduced remedial education costs and improved economic and social productivity in adulthood. Our holistic approach will cover STEM, home language literacy, remedial support, robotics (to begin with, in the Western Cape and Gauteng provinces), and a nutrition element.”
“We are proud to be partnering with the Minister of Basic Education and her department on this. We are committed to supporting their efforts. We believe this programme will change children’s lives for the long term. Together, we have the power, and the deep shared passion and commitment to make a real, immediate and lasting difference.” Vundla added.
The Sanlam Foundation Education Programme partners with world-class implementation experts to foster strong foundational skills. This work is anchored by a theory of change and measurable outcomes to ensure it is data and feedback-driven.
Minister Motshekga says, “We are indeed privileged to work in collaboration and partnership with Sanlam, a proudly South African company with well-recorded success in nation-building in South Africa and other countries. The National Development Plan, which is the cornerstone of Government policy, specifies that effective and sustained partnerships between Government and the private sector go a long way towards the national vision of an improved basic education system. We highly appreciate that Sanlam has joined hands with us and recognises the huge task faced by the Department towards achieving our main objective of improving learning outcomes at every phase. We are, therefore, proud to be part of the launch of the Sanlam Foundation Education Programme today, which aims at, among others, to ensure that our children between three and nine years old receive quality foundation skills that will equip and nurture them for a brighter future ahead.”
