development
A WINNING EQUATION

In a partnership with the Transnet Foundation, Murray & Roberts Corporate Social Involvement continues to support early childhood development.

Murray & Roberts has been funding the Maths Centre for Professional Teachers for two years to initiate an exciting, innovative, unique and sustainable programme in the Early Childhood Development (ECD) centres in Limpopo, Gauteng, KZN, North West, Eastern Cape and the Free State.


Mercia Maserumule (Murray & Roberts), Sharanjeet Shan (Maths Centre) and Vivian Moila (Transnet Foundation)
The Maths Centre, a leading organisation in the ECD sector, has always believed that numeracy understanding and learning must begin at an early age. Research shows that if certain concepts are not learnt by the age of seven, it becomes increasingly difficult to unravel the mystery that mathematics becomes as it gets more complex and abstract. With this grant, the Maths Centre has produced well-researched, highly educational, attractive and stimulating ECD materials.

“Only when such foundations for learning are laid can we hope for inequalities to gradually disappear,” says the Maths Centre ECD co-ordinator Sakina Kamwenedo. Sakina is a firm believer in starting very young learners on a diet of exciting, structured play activities that explore basic operations in number, shape and space and measurement patterns to lay the foundations of algebra and geometry. Few ECD educators believed that pre-school children could tackle numeracy before Sakina worked with them. Many have become committed to creating enriching and enabling environments for the young children, preparing them for school.


Pre-schoolers learning maths with The Maths Centre's ECD Programme

The Maths Centre’s assertion is that all children can be proficient in school mathematics.

“Children need to have fun with mathematics. It is a friendly and essential tool that they will need in their daily lives and future careers in order to have a rich and successful life. It is a language of the mind, of thinking skills and it gives you an edge in life,” says the Maths Centre CEO, Sharanjeet Shan.