“Early childhood care and education (ECCE) is more than preparation for primary school. It aims at the holistic development of a child’s social, emotional, cognitive, physical needs in order to build a solid and broad foundation for lifelong learning and wellbeing. ECCE has the possibility to nurture caring, capable and responsible future citizens” (UNESCO).

Guided by the above UNESCO definition for ECCE, Cargills Foundation initiated their education support for the future generations by contributing with the following programme:

• Cargills ECE school-based programme
• Cargills ESL home–learning programme

Through the Early Childhood Education school-based program, Cargills provides children with an unique opportunity to enhance and develop their knowledge of the English language via exposure to the basic concepts in the fields of STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, and Mathematics). Moreover, the programme helps to build a strong social and emotional foundation which would positively impact the development of a child in their adult life.
The programme is developed by Kidsloop a global EdTech company, based in South Korea, and is aligned with the local curriculum Western Province preschool learning guidelines.
The Cargills ECE lessons are structured with activities that stimulate the following child development skills:

• Speech and Language Skills
• Cognitive Skills
• Fine Motor Skills
• Gross Motor Skills
• Social and Emotional Skills

In December 2020, the Cargills Foundation completed the pilot phase of the ECE school-based program which formally commenced in May 2019 with 48 preschools comprising a total of 750 students within the Western Province. These preschools adopted a blended learning approach, combining both traditional and digital teaching methods which provided the children with an early exposure to English in an emotionally engaging manner. The blended learning environment in the pilot preschools was supported by the use of digital tablets. An enhanced version of the programme will be available soon which would see the introduction of a comprehensive Content & Learning Management System (CLMS) and touchscreen devices.
As of today, the total number of students involved in programme is approximately 1300 with nearly 100 teachers who have been trained to conduct this programme.
The Cargills Foundation is currently making plans to expand the reach of the school-based programme beyond the Western Province -in ensuring children have an opportunity to access a quality English based programme in our nation. While continuing the blended learning approach adopted in the pilot phase, the Cargills Foundation has introduced a fully online version in the next phase for the teachers to continue their preschools and the kids to continue their learning if preschools are not in a position to open physically due to unexpected situations. This system will provide teacher capacity building initiatives and will connect a parent or guardian to assess their child’s progress.
With the new developments of the Kidsloop features any school can enter into Cargills programme in the near future and use the CLMS platform for any grade level to ensure the completeness of their curriculum plans by mapping scope and sequence to outcome and milestones and student progress reports. Tracking learner achievements and developments and offer recommendations based on data analytics would be received by the user. Teachers and organizations can get an interactive assessment report that offers insight into performance levels of schools, teachers, students, and the curriculum itself.
The Foundation is aware that many of our population may not have access to online facilities and therefore has started putting their thoughts into designing an offline programme with printable materials.

As we progress in our program, the Foundation has recently introduced the Cargills ESL learning package to the ever expanding ECE programme. Kids who need adult support can be benefited from this through parents or their guardians while the others can start learning English according to their ability level.
We believe that our programme would no doubt help empower our next generation for a brighter future for the betterment of our nation.

For more information: Cargillsfoundation@cargillsceylon.com