A new education initiative that focuses especially on early childhood education has been launched in Grahamstown.
Two fourth year Rhodes students, Cathleen O’Grady and Kati Auld, are the organisers of Shine, a new society at Rhodes.
A new education initiative that focuses especially on early childhood education has been launched in Grahamstown.
Two fourth year Rhodes students, Cathleen O’Grady and Kati Auld, are the organisers of Shine, a new society at Rhodes.
They have taken it upon themselves to better the early education of children living in townships. The initiative is inspired by an earlier programme that has been running for six years in Cape Town with incredible results.
The literacy rates of young learners increased through Shine’s paired reading programme. Auld’s mother, Margaux Newdigate, volunteers at Shine in Cape Town, which is how Auld became involved with the project.
Auld and O’Grady contacted headquarters and through a process of negotiations obtained permission to operate under their name and logo at Rhodes.
They both volunteered at different reading programmes in the townships last year, but found that the classes were too big for them to really make a difference.
Auld added that it was too difficult to teach some Grade 9 learners, because their grasp of the English language and spelling is not proficient, illustrating the importance of getting it right early on.
They will work mainly with learners in preschool and in the foundation phase, which is from Grade 1 to Grade 3, because “without learning to conceptualise, the rest of education isn’t going to happen,” says O’Grady.
She believes that education is the solution to most social ills in South Africa, for example HIV/Aids, abuse and poverty. Early childhood education is the most expensive form of education, but it is also the one that is most neglected within lower socio- economic environments.
“Underprivileged kids are just looked after, there are no toys to stimulate their intellectual development,”says Auld.
O’Grady says that educational toys like puzzles, counting frames and shapes are incredibly important for the cognitive development of children.
“Many of us growing up this way don’t realise how important it is for development,” she says. This year Shine will work primarily at Tantyi Primary School where they will head a project each term.
This term they will start with the paired reading programme which will carry on throughout the year. The aim is to get one volunteer for each child so that the child can gain confidence from personal attention.
“[Classroom] education is not the same as helping kids with their homework or reading to them,” says Auld. Shine will try to make reading fun and a form of entertainment within a social atmosphere.
It’s about encouraging not only literacy skills, but understanding. More projects are in the pipeline for 2010, but for now attracting volunteers, the paired reading programme and fundraising are prominent goals on the agenda.
During the second term Shine will host a fundraiser to collect educational toys for different schools, because educational toys are very expensive.
They will raise funds throughout the year to afford transport and for paint to decorate the classrooms to create an exciting learning environment for the children.
