| Title | Concluding reflections: Supporting communities through early childhood education for sustainable development |
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| Contributor | Mariëtte Koen(editor) |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.4102/aosis.2025.BK512.0c |
| Landing page | https://books.aosis.co.za/index.php/ob/catalog/book/512 |
| License | https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ |
| Copyright | Mariëtte Koen, Stef Esterhuizen, Pumla Matu & Skyler Pedro. Licensee: AOSIS (Pty) Ltd. The moral rights of the editors and authors have been asserted. |
| Publisher | AOSIS |
| Print length | 5 pages |
| Language | English (Original) |
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Mariëtte Koen is a South African academic specialising in educational psychology and ECD. At the time of conceptualising and contributing to this publication, Koen served as the Acting Research Director of COMBER at NWU, South Africa. She holds a PhD in the Psychology of Education and possesses extensive qualifications in teaching and learning in higher education, African languages and remedial teaching. Her expertise focuses on the holistic well-being of children aged 0–9, encompassing their social, physical, emotional, psychological, cognitive and spiritual development. Koen strongly advocates for participatory research methodologies, particularly participatory action learning and action research (PALAR), andemphasises community-driven approaches to educational transformation. Through her leadership at COMBER, she contributes to research that supports sustainable development in southern Africa by fostering collaborative knowledge creation with and for communities.
Stef Esterhuizen is an associate professor in the Faculty of Education at NWU, South Africa. In 2024, Esterhuizen received the CE Service-Learning Project Fund awarded by NWU. Her research interests focus on the teaching and learning practices of in-service and pre-service teachers to promote the holistic development of young children in early childhood education(ECE) through a play-based approach. Esterhuizen has served as co-editor for two books and leads the Thutopapadi Hola mmoho Project (‘Together we grow [children and seeds] through play’). She has presented papers at several national and international conferences, published numerous scholarly articles and book chapters and supervises postgraduate students.
Pumla Matu is a lecturer in the Subject Group for ECD and Education at NWU, South Africa. Matu holds an MEd in Learner Support from NWU. In 2014, she received the prestigious South African Higher Education ScholarlyGrant, part of the University Capacity Development Grant Programme (UCDGP), awarded by NWU. Her research interests and expertise focus on COMBER in early learning, literacy and language development. Matu is an novice researcher who assists in the postgraduate supervision of BEd(Hons), MEd and PhD candidates while mentoring employed African languages lecturers temporarily using the technology-enhanced active language learning (TeALL) approach
Skyler Pedro is a lecturer in ECD at NWU in South Africa, where she also serves as the Subject Group Leader for Early Childhood Education and Development. She teaches English Home Language (EHL) modules to undergraduate students across all four years of study. In 2023, she completed her MEd and began pursuing a PhD, while contributing to this publication, focusing on how initial teacher education programmes prepare pre-service teachers for reading instruction in early childhood classrooms. In recognition of her innovative teaching practices, she received the NWU Novice Teacher Award in 2023. Pedro is also an emerging postgraduate supervisor, supporting research in the fields of early literacy, teacher education and curriculum development, and she co-supervises two MEd students. Additionally, she has presented her work at several national and international conferences. Pedro’s first scholarly publication is a co-written chapter in *International perspectives on early childhood education for sustainability: Envisioning sustainable futures with young children *(Springer, 2025).