The Early Childhood Development program sponsored by Buscor has held a graduation ceremony for the practitioners who completed their first year of the 2-year program on 17 November 2023, at Civic center in Nelspruit, Mpumalanga. Buscor has established this ECD program for almost three decades ago in pursuit of helping train professional pre-school teachers as part of their Corporate Social Responsibility program.
Executive HR Manager Opens the Ceremony with a Welcome Speech
Buscor Executive Board was part of the event. Mr. S. Nkuna, our HR General Manager gave his opening remarks to welcome everyone who was part of the event and went on to give us the welcoming and constitution of the congregation.
The executive HR manager has also emphasized and reminded ECD practitioners about the importance of teaching young kids about Gender-Based Violence at a very tender age. The ceremony was nothing short of spectacular moments as the room was filled with beautiful flowers of the day, and that is the Early Childhood Development practitioners.
The Facilitators of the Program
The ECD program has been under the supervision of two beautiful and hardworking ladies by the name of Hilda and Pretty, who has been with us for over a decade. Both our facilitators dedicated and offered their time to train and hone amazing practitioners that are today professional kindergarten owners within the Mpumalanga Province.
Pretty, who is one of the facilitators explained that some of her duties is to facilitate training programmes for groups of ECD practitioners. She also do monitor and record progress of practitioners. She has also mentioned that they conduct classes once a month on Saturdays since most of the practitioners are working during the week in their pre-schools.
Another long serving facilitator who has been training ECD practitioners at Buscor is Hilda Mthombeni, who has been with the company for over a decade. Her duties include assessing practitioner assignments that they are ought to do as part of the school thesis.
Mrs. Hilda further elaborated on the structure of the workshop classes for this two-year ECD program. “Our ECD program spans two years, and we award certificates to our practitioners each year. On the second year, we teach them the business side of ECD, such as how to hire other people and how to manage your business,β Mrs. Hilda explains.
Traditional Dance Groups formed part of the Entertainment
There was no room for boredom during the day of the graduation ceremony as there was two traditional dance groups that has graced us with their performances. The groups gave us beautiful performance that were inspired by the Siswati traditional dances, songs, and some of Imizwilili type of sound.
Guest Speaker of the Day β Thandeka Mngadi
A woman of honor and a most well-educated professional who has travelled the world for inspiring and promoting social cohesion, which is Mrs. Thandeka Mngadi, was our guest speaker for the ceremony. She has more accolades under her name and one of them is being the well-versed Early Childhood Development practitioner. Mrs. Mngadi holds senior positions in multinational companies both within the public and private sectors.
The guest speaker talked about the key qualities of being an ECD practitioner, which involves social skills and human development strategies to help shape the future of our children. She showed support and yearned the need for our South African government to continue invest more in the ECD programs because most pre-school owners are struggling on their own.
βThe government involvement will help our ECD practitioners to improve their study rooms to have better ablution, proper infrastructure and better salary structure,β elaborates Mngadi.
She has also encouraged the practitioners to be aware that they will come across difficulties such as dealing with disabled kids, and it is their responsibility to always remain professional and loving.
Conclusion
Indeed, the graduation ceremony was a perfect place to be as we were showing love and support to the beneficiaries of our ECD program as part of our CSR initiative. We would like to thank everyone who was part of the ceremony. Congratulations are in order to the practitioners who has just graduated recently.