The Importance of Early Childhood Education

With the Importance of Early Childhood Education, the EaziTeach™ Programme is making a Positive Educational Impact on ECD Centres.

There is a considerable need to improve the education of millions of learners in Early Childhood Development (ECD) centres in South Africa. A recent poll shows that two in three 4–5-year-olds in South Africa fail to thrive in preschools.

For almost the last decade, Pattern Matched Technologies™ (PMT) has been involved with an NGO close to our hearts called The Family Africa. Over the years, PMT™ has strengthened its partnership and collaboration with The Family Africa organisation.

The Family Africa team supports local communities through various initiatives, including ECD centres, youth education programmes, health & safety awareness, and food parcel distributions. PMT™ has supported these incredible initiatives in many ways over the years.

A few years ago, PMT™ went a step further in creating and sponsoring The EaziTeach™ programme, which is run by The Family Africa team. The EaziTeach™ programme is focused on bringing educational aspirations for the future of South Africa by rolling out learning programmes to creches at grass root schools across the country.

These programmes are designed to enable teachers at ECD centres to use their android phones to connect to Smart TVs, which are supposed by PMT™, to give young learners access to thousands of educational resources, reading schemes and numeracy activities.

PMT™ understands the importance and value of ECD centres in our society as they are the pillars of education and essential to bridging equity gaps, overcoming multigenerational poverty, and unlocking a child’s full potential.

“PMT is privileged to provide sponsorship to over 20 teachers from Family Africa as part of our support for the EaziTeach™ initiative in equipping teachers to help build better communities through education. There is no better feeling than to know that you have contributed to building the next generation of South Africa!” said Managing Director of PMT™, Henning Viljoen.

The Family Africa team has also spent much time this year mentoring and training teachers to work with 4–5-year-olds; life skills are a big topic and a significant one, covering practical skills and cognitive and social skills. The Family Africa team has also been working hard on many other impactful initiatives that also help support the programme even further.

In South Africa, there are still around 4.4 million illiterate adults. The Family Africa is striving to do what it can to lift literacy rates by tackling it at the preschool level so children get a head start. They are also running regular literacy classes for adults to make a difference in their lives and improve the lives of future generations.

PMT™ is committed to the incredible vision of The Family Africa team and will continue to stand and support them to make this vision a reality.

The Family Africa Blanket Drive!

By now, the yearly Family Africa Blanket Drive has become a tradition for PMT™ to be involved in. At the start of the colder winter months, the PMT™ team came together to donate over 800 blankets to people in need and to make sure these families were kept warm over this winter.