Everything you need to run a sustainable ECD Business

Education and Business support for Preschools

Running a professional ECD Centre takes a lot!

We know that you need daily passion and determination to run a preschool, especially if you feel isolated from opportunities and have limited access to resources. It’s an immense responsibility that is as rewarding as it is demanding! Centre owners are expected to manage their staff, finances, nutrition, learning outcomes, compliance, reporting and more…

No one should be expected to do this important work alone. We want to help.

Grow ECD’s ECD Small Business Programme is here to lighten your load. Thanks to practical support, access to resources, tools and opportunities and a supportive community of like-minded owners you’ll be making progress towards your dream centre soon.

ECD Small Business Programme

Everything you need to run a sustainable ECD Business.

*The preschool remains independent and unbranded and is Supported by Grow ECD.

Quality Education Programme

Business Support

Heart for Children + Head for Business = Sustainable ECD Businesses

We believe that it takes passion AND business skills, appropriate tools and resources to ensure your ECD Business is run successfully. When you combine your heart for children with technology, a quality education programme and business support, there’s no stopping you.

Who can apply for Grow ECD's Quality Education Programme?

Your preschool must be registered on our free ECD app.
You must use the app to register staff and learners and track daily attendance.
You must use the app to track your business income and expenses (this is important if you plan to apply for low-cost loan finance from Grow ECD).
You must have an ECD Centre located within 75km from a Grow ECD office (we are based in Cape Town, Midrand, Durban and Pietermaritzburg.
Your centre should have 25+ active learners.

What I like about the Grow ECD program is that it teaches you how to be independent, how to fully be in control of your business! It teaches you how to put your business in your own hands. Before we had so many papers! But now each teacher has their own app as well, they can just edit if there's a mistake, and everything is so neat, and it's so organized, and everyone is just happy! My advice to other ECD Owners is to give it a try. With this app, if you use it, it's like a computer. It's all in your phone, now it's all in your hands.

I was very interested I the Grow ECD Programme because we need assistance with the financial health of our small business, and guidance on how to make my ECD better. Now, with the Apps, everything is at my fingertips so I don't have to look for books or look for information or go to the office. Everything is there for me. We need to change with the times – we need to get more modern. This app - it easy, it's convenient, and it's cheap! It's free. My advice to other ECD Owners who are not sure if this app will help them is that they must come to a meeting and ask questions. It's free of charge and it's so so easy to use.

For me, the Grow ECD curriculum is the best thing that has happened to my school in all the years I've been running. Before we got the Grow ECD curriculum and classroom kit, learning and teaching were very challenging. We had very little resources to support our day to day activities and learning. Now with the Grow ECD curriculum and learning materials our teachers are more confident in what they are doing, and our learners are having so much fun discovering and learning.And there is definitely a big improvement in how we teach our learners daily.

As a foundation with a mandate to support social enterprises that build sustainable businesses and job creation and where possible, solve a social need, we often struggle to source black-owned businesses that meet this mandate. Grow ECD gave us the opportunity to help women to be self-employed and provide quality ECD centres where the children no longer have to travel outside of their communities for their education. The educare centres also create employment for people living in those communities. If you’re looking at supporting an initiative that offers quality ECD education and ongoing support to early learning centres, consider Grow ECD Centres!

Grow ECD delivered on exactly what they had promised – and more. My centre was revamped, high quality and relevant learning equipment and the materials were delivered. I was filled with hope! The Grow ECD team did not stop there. They assisted me and my teachers with training workshops, business and education mentoring, school visits and coaching, financial guidance, a great day-by-day education programme and so much more. They made sure that my centre as a whole was of exceptional quality.