The Department of Basic Education, together with its partners, will be hosting the international Africa Play Conference in Pretoria on 25-27 February 2019. Ministers of Education, experts and policy makers, high-level representatives from development cooperation agencies, private sector, academia, parent–teacher associations, civil society, youth organizations and the media from around the world will converge for this important gathering.
The objectives of the Africa Play Conference are to facilitate an understanding and commitment of policy-makers and influencers on the important role of PLAY in preparing children for the opportunities of the 21st century and the achievement of sustainable development at a national and global level. The other key objectives of this Conference are:
- Ensuring that the importance of play, supported by evidence, shapes a national commitment that will drive play as an essential part of children’s learning, development and well-being in the national policy dialogue, development and programme implementation;
- Reflecting on the adequacy of national policies and programmes against national and international evidence to prepare children for the opportunities of the 21st century;
- Facilitating a critical dialogue between science, policy and practice on advancing children’s learning and preparedness for new opportunities and challenges of the 21st century; and
- Supporting policy-makers, through evidence, to define their role and space in promoting PLAY-based learning.
The South African government has taken the lead in ensuring that there is universal coverage with regard to the Early Childhood Development (ECD) sector. “The reality confronting us today is that, we can no longer teach the 21st century learners using the run-of-the-mill 20th century pedagogical methods. The future beckons, and that future is digital – the fusion of technologies that is blurring the lines between the physical, digital, and biological spheres. It is an exciting world where play itself is transformed to play a role in the cognitive development of the child,” said Mrs. Angie Motshekga, the Minister of Basic Education.
John Goodwin, CEO of the LEGO Foundation commented: “For the past 10 years we have worked closely with the Department of Basic Education and UNICEF in South Africa to bring the transformative power of play into children’s lives to help them become creative, engaged, lifelong learners and I am honored and excited to be co-hosting the first conference in Africa exploring learning through play.”
There is recognition that in order to teach and assess 21st century skills, there needs to be a shift towards active approaches that are congruent with how children learn skills or how to demonstrate them.
What is play-based learning?
By nature children are driven to play and play-based learning builds on this innate ability by using play as a setting for learning. In this milieu children are free to experiment, explore, challenge, analyse, tackle and solve problems using their imagination and through play. Play based learning means the learner has space to initiate activities while the teacher plays a supporting role. Teachers are expected to encourage learning through an engagement that challenges the learners to go beyond the limit. Play-based learning encourages innovative, it stretches the learner’s thinking skills and takes it to a higher level. The play-based model is fun, exciting, enjoyable, and competitive and makes children want to explore and discover new things all the time.
“In an increasingly complex, changing, competitive, and interconnected world, we all want to ensure that our children gain the life skills needed to be successful in life. Experts worldwide, acknowledge that today’s children need more than the traditional 3-Rs (i.e. reading, writing and arithmetic) to prepare for 21st century opportunities.
As Government, we are paving the way towards the 21st century opportunities, by preparing our children in the four critical areas, namely the 4-Cs –Collaboration and teamwork; Creativity and imagination; Critical thinking; and Communication,” Minister Motshekga said. The three-day Africa Play conference will feature exhibitions in addition to the contributions from various speakers from many parts of the world.