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THE ISSUE

OVERVIEW

One year of quality pre-school education will make a huge difference in the child’s potential for success. It is crucial to teach pre-school children in a nurturing and stimulating environment.

One year of quality pre-school education will make a huge difference in the child’s potential for success. It is crucial to teach pre-school children in a nurturing and stimulating environment.

children and mother in front of black plastic chairs

Tragically, few South African children will receive adequate early childhood education. 

  • Only one in five South African children achieves a school-leaving certificate 
  • Very few South African children receive adequate early childhood education
  • Only 2% of children under three are enrolled in full-day pre-school programs and about 17% of children under six. For example in Belgium, France, Denmark and Italy the figure is about 80%. 
  • Disabled children are particularly seriously affected. 
  • Much of the pre-schooling takes place in cramped, dilapidated and unhygienic conditions, so that many six and seven year olds enter the formal schooling system drastically unprepared, resulting in frustration and poor learning and high rates of grade repetition, failure and dropping out.
  • The South African Government has asked primary schools to add Grade R facilities stipulating that primary schools need quality classrooms and that children should not be taught in shacks. The problem is that  primary schools generally don’t have funds for extra classrooms

EARLY CHILDHOOD DEVELOPMENT

Research into Early Child Development, or ECD, has shown that this period, which includes the Grade-R age group, is the most important in terms of maturing to healthy, functional adults. 

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The benefits of receiving one year of adequate preschool education are:

  • More confident and able
  • More likely not to repeat a grade
  • Less likely to need remedial education
  • Less likely to be involved in crime
  • More likely to get a job
  • Less likely to experience teen pregnancies

THE SOLUTION

The Edutainer