One hundred and fifty-nine women from rural areas around Durban recently graduated with Early Childhood Development (ECD) qualifications that will empower them and the communities they serve.
The women qualified through learnership programmes under the Environment and Language Education Trust (ELET). They are now better placed to teach at this level within their communities.
Nareshini Ranganthan, the director at ELET, said the graduates were now ready to find jobs and make contributions in their communities.
“ELET was established in 1984 as a registered non-profit organisation based in Cato Manor. The core focus at inception was to address, nationally, the declining standard of education due to English being the language of instruction for second-language learners. The challenge was that their educators were also second-language speakers and needed support to substantially increase their proficiency in the language.”
Ranganthan said the three core pillars of ELET were literacy and language development; foundational education; and skills and environment.
“With a national footprint, ELET has evolved to address urgent needs to create opportunities for unemployed rural women; address the crisis in literacy and reading; impact poor results in mathematics and physical science; formulate environmental rehabilitation and climate change awareness programs; and set up food production community gardens to address hunger in severely under-served rural areas.
“ECD is fundamental to building a solid foundation for education. The government’s National Development Plan cites this as being critical to our country’s long-term development. Placing qualified and highly competent practitioners at crèches and Grade R classrooms is therefore a huge priority.
“ELET has therefore placed importance on this by rolling out ECD learnership programmes in both NQF levels 4 and 5 for rural unemployed women. Upon achieving their qualification, these women have the opportunities they did not have previously to enter formal employment at schools and crèches.”
Ranganthan said as much value as possible was added to the ECD learning programme, by incorporating skills programmes for English proficiency for second-language learners, basic first aid, including disability in education in Africa and water and sanitation hygiene.
“These programmes serve the added advantage of increasing the knowledge base of communities in the rural areas from where the women come. Presently, we have 420 learners in sites across the country, while peaking with 12 sites and 750 learners in 2021 and graduating over 500 learners thus far in the ECD qualification.”
Recently, 159 rural women graduated.
“The organisation is proud to have recently also enrolled 110 rural disabled women in ECD programmes forming part of our commitment to inclusive education in our country. This now provides a clear career pathway for these rural disabled women, for whom opportunities are sadly lacking.
“In the environmental space, ELET is devising programmes to address awareness on plastic disposal. The creation of healthy, productive and enhanced environments at rural schools is moving forward with the setting up of sustainable food gardens to provide much-needed food for poor rural communities.
“Our teacher development and learner support programmes focus on improving results in the science subjects. This is important as the world rapidly approach the Fourth Industrial Revolution. The recent global Progress in International Reading Literacy Study report placed South Africa close to ‘bottom of the class’ for literacy. ELET in response has begun workshops to coach 49 foundational grade educators from eight schools in Umlazi on how to improve teaching of literacy.”
Ranganthan said the provision of educational opportunities to rural women remained a key priority.
“I believe the empowerment of women remains the most significant measurement of the transformation of our country. We make a living by what we get, but we make a life by what we give. The team at ELET mirror this and is driven and passionate to impact people from under-served, rural enclaves to create better lives for themselves, their families and their communities.”
For more information, see Facebook: Environment and Language Education Trust.