“Ama2000” — South Africa’s version of Gen Z — is used to describe a generation perceived as rebellious and vocal. They are known for challenging authority. Yet, at a workshop in Freedom Park in Soweto, I witnessed something that defied these assumptions: young early childhood development (ECD) practitioners brimming with energy, ideas and a willingness to work alongside their senior counterparts and principals, rather than challenge them.
The workshop was hosted by Phakamani Young Minds Academy, a youth-led organisation that provides 74 ECD centres with leadership training and resources.
The young practitioners’ participation in the workshop revealed the potential for intergenerational collaboration to improve the quality of early learning. They fed off each other’s strengths. Principals and senior practitioners brought wisdom and experience, while young people brought digital fluency and a willingness to try new things in a sector driven largely by small private operators.
For context, many early learning programmes in South Africa have long existed in an informal landscape, often run by women from their homes, garages or church halls. Over time, they began treating childcare as small businesses, albeit outside of government oversight and support systems.
Today, many ECD practitioners in low-income communities are not registered to receive state subsidies because of onerous compliance conditions. There are concerted efforts to remedy this through government’s Bana Pele Mass Registration Drive which has brought 10 000 early learning sites into the fold. There are also efforts to improve the flow of information and resources to the largely informal sector — all with the aim of improving the quality of services.
The rollout of digital tools like ECD Connect, a free web-app that helps practitioners and principals keep track of attendance, organise lesson plans, manage their finances and more, is an example of what civil society is doing to improve the quality of ECD services.
But change doesn’t come easily. Young practitioners tend to navigate the ECD Connect app with ease, while seasoned practitioners are slower to adopt new technology.
This brings me back to the Soweto workshop and what I witnessed there. Young practitioners at the workshop were able to demonstrate to older principals that digital tools, like ECD Connect, could ease their administrative burden. Suddenly, tech felt less intimidating.
Digital tools work best when they are embedded in interpersonal relationships, when the person introducing them brings trust, empathy and cultural fluency. The workshop demonstrated that collaboration across generations is not only possible, but essential for strengthening the quality of services in the sector.
Young people in the care economy
The Phakamani Young Minds Academy runs multiple after-school programmes that nurture children’s growth beyond the classroom. Recognising the deep challenges faced by children long before they reach “big school”, the organisation extended its focus to ECD, supporting centres with training and resources for caregivers. However, they realised that many centres lacked hands-on support. In response, they began placing trained youth in ECD centres. Through this model, young people gain purpose and professional grounding in the care economy while older practitioners gain much-needed support and renewed confidence in integrating technology and innovation into their daily practice.
South Africa remains challenged by the number of unemployed young people in our communities. Public employment programmes and other initiatives (like the Phakamani model) create opportunities for young people. For instance, the teacher-assistant model in schools under the Basic Education Employment Initiative (BEEI) has the potential to operate as youth employment pathways and deliver value to schools (through added capacity) and youth (through experience). Perhaps, to scale what I observed in Soweto, consideration regarding extending efforts such the BEEI into ECD bears merit.
Hope and urgency
The Soweto workshop left me with hope and a sense of urgency. Hope, because I saw what’s possible when young and older generations choose collaboration over competition for resources. Urgency, because we must build spaces that allow senior practitioners and young people to learn from each other.
Too often, quality is defined narrowly by compliance checklists, infrastructure requirements, or regulatory approvals. These matter, but they are not the whole picture. Quality ECD must also mean practitioners and principals who feel supported, early learning programmes that can sustain themselves, and communities where children thrive. To achieve this, we need both the wisdom of seasoned practitioners and the energy of young people who are not afraid to disrupt, question and innovate.
If Freedom Park is any indication, the future of ECD may well lie in the partnership between those who built the path and those who are ready to sprint down it.
Yomelelani Twetwa is the ECD Network and Training Manager at Umncedi, an incubated project at the DG Murray Trust (DGMT). She has worked in the early childhood development sector for five years, driven by a passion for strengthening the foundations of quality early learning.
This op-ed was originally placed by City Press on 9 November 2025. Read it here.
