Cotlands is proud to announce that we received a silver for the Social Transformation Award for Education & Skills Development at this year’s prestigious Gauteng Premier’s Service Excellence Awards held at Gallagher Convention Centre on Thursday evening, 27 February 2020. We are honoured that the Premier of Gauteng, Mr David Makhura recognised our innovative work in early childhood development; early learning playgroups and toy libraries. Our programmes do not only impact and improve the lives of our children, but through our parenting workshops we also improve the lives of parents and caregivers.  We know how important the role of parents and caregivers are in raising a child; so we are committed to also educating adults that interact with children on a regular basis on the importance of play-based learning. Strengthening relationships between children and their parents is important.

An independent study confirmed that children that participated in the Cotlands ECD programmes show a 20% improvement in their school readiness scores. Every Friday, Cotlands invests a significant amount of time, energy and resources in training and developing our early learning playgroup facilitators and toy librarians. Empowering our employees with knowledge ensures we provide the best quality play-based learning opportunities to our children; affording them the best educational start in life. Children who access good quality ECD care are more likely to break the inter-generational poverty cycle. Over 1.1 million children in South Africa are not accessing play-based early learning opportunities resulting in poor school readiness. Children’s brains develop the most between the ages of 0-5 years of age and we have this one window of opportunity to stimulate their neural development by increasing access to quality play-based learning.

Dr Monica Stach, Cotlands CEO comments, “I am thrilled that we have been acknowledged for our hard work. The award is a testament to the quality of our ECD programmes and is in support of our purpose to create an equitable, cohesive society for a brighter and more sustainable future.”