EsF Community Rooted Education (CoRE)

The CoRE training programme supports ECD practitioners apply Montessori principles and practices to the care and education of children aged 0-6 in underserved and under-resourced communities. This training programme helps ECD practitioners cultivate a greater understanding of a child’s developmental needs and teaches them how to construct learning materials using local resources to prepare a low-cost, developmentally-supportive classroom environment that serves the needs of each, individual child in context.

Programme overview

The CoRE training programme was designed in collaboration with AMI to enable ECD practitioners currently working with children aged 0-6 to radically improve the quality of education and care in these crucial years of a child’s neurological development and to make quality training accessible in underserved communities.

Research reveals that children in the most disadvantaged quintiles of their societies are at the greatest risk of being deprived during the ages of 0-6. Without early intervention, biological and psychosocial risk factors associated with poverty lead to inequalities which undermine educational attainment and adult productivity, thereby perpetuating the poverty cycle. With this understanding, CoRE focuses on supporting early childhood development (ECD) practitioners and optimizing the use of community resources, talents, and capabilities to create nurturing environments where children can thrive. CoRE complements innate culturally based knowledge and community engagement, encouraging dynamic discussions about children’s development supported by observations of children and how adults can best support them in their context. Montessori theoretical principles are interwoven with practical guidance enabling adults to create supporting environments. Local resources are utilised, and adults engage in the co-construction of the learning materials that are developmentally supportive. CoRE is implemented within the existing local framework for ECD and seeks to take a holistic approach to ECD to integrate health, nutrition and education of mother and child from before conception through the first years of life and requires collaboration with local agencies to offer comprehensive ECD.

CoRE is centred on the idea that a community grows and flourishes when children are supported to realize their fullest potential and is run in collaboration with local government, recognised educational investors and important NGO partners from the local and international community.

Successful completion of this programme leads to being awarded an international Educateurs sans Frontières (EsF) certificate. The Indaba Institute seeks to develop a model to take this training to scale and grow its relationship with local government and key players within the private sector to make the training accessible to more ECD practitioners working with children in underserved communities across the Cape Winelands and South Africa.

Programme format

This training course is offered in modular format and consists of 740 hours of classroom-based training composed of knowledge and practical skills modules (74 credits). The course is presented in six modules (one week per month) over six months. CoRE is an incremental programme, focused on meeting educators where they are and linking theoretical sessions with practical experience, observation, and individualised support to support ECD practitioners through a process of exploration and reflection. It also includes the creation of low-cost, child-centric learning materials.

To find out whether CoRE training is available in your community, reach out to [email protected]