Johannesburg - The LEGO Foundation has selected The Unlimited Child (TUC), one of South Africa's top early childhood development (ECD) organisations, to serve as its research and implementation partner in Africa for the pilot of its Playful Learning Across the Years (PLAY) toolkit.
According to estimates, 64% of South Africans who start Grade 1 will drop out of school. The fact that so many young people lack access to early learning, which presents a crucial window of opportunity to influence a child's educational development and lay the groundwork for their future learning, is the cause of this painful reality.
When children have the chance to play with toys that are specifically made to foster child outcomes, such as but not limited to cognitive, emotional, gross, and fine motor abilities, during the first six years of their development, the foundation of early learning is cemented.
Measuring is a crucial component in developing a deeper knowledge of what play-based learning looks like in various contexts and educational environments. The PLAY toolbox was created by the LEGO Foundation for this reason.
Children are actively involved in their own learning processes when they are in environments that value play, child-centred learning, and discovery. Being able to fully adopt more creative, innovative techniques requires continual support for practitioners and parents because it is difficult to change well-established ways of teaching and learning. The field will advance in ensuring that kids acquire a variety of abilities and realise their full potential by being able to more effectively evaluate and reflect on playful learning activities.
The PLAY toolkit has been developed and piloted. In order to develop and test the tools required to show the impact of playful pedagogies on children's holistic outcomes across age groups, settings, and geographies, The Unlimited Child has been selected along with counterparts in Asia (India and Bangladesh), South America (Colombia), and global academic research institutes. The tools are intended to support practitioners with their playful practices and to be a cost-effective, reliable, and practical way to measure how adults encourage children's involvement in learning.
"The impact that this partnership will have on quality early learning outcomes for children under the age of six is life-changing", says Candice Potgieter, CEO of The Unlimited Child.
"Children learn best through play. It’s an essential part of early learning, but so few children have access to high-quality, structured play activities that set them up for future educational success. In every child’s life, a critical learning foundation needs to be established by the age of six."
"Key to this partnership is the standardised measurement tool that can be used globally upon completion to better assess and reflect on playful learning initiatives that will help move the field forward in ensuring that children are able to reach their full potential. For The Unlimited Child, this is necessary as we embark on our expansion beyond the borders of South Africa into Africa as a continent to make sure no child is left behind. We are just not willing to let that happen on our watch because their future starts now."
The biggest early childhood development programme in South Africa is called The Unlimited Child. Almost 1.5 million children in underprivileged areas across South Africa, Lesotho, and Zimbabwe have benefited from its high-quality, sustainable, and all-encompassing early childhood development initiative. In doing so, the initiative revolutionised and provided close to 4000 ECD centres with age-appropriate, specifically created toys and resources, as well as taught and supervised over 8000 ECD practitioners in a skills development programme.
"We know that if we don’t pitch our goals high, children will be left behind. If a child does not have access to ECD, their potential in life will be a 3/10 with no possibility of ever reaching a 10/10, and no teacher in the world will be able to change this. Our work is urgent, and that is why we will continue relentlessly to work with like-minded philanthropists, corporate funders, and non-profit foundations such as The LEGO Foundation to provide access to quality early learning programmes so that, by exponential growth, ALL children can fully benefit," said Potgieter.
The Star