Local Early Childhood Development Centres (ECDs) have welcomed the migration of responsibilities from the Department of Social Development (DSD) to the Department of Basic Education (DBE).
This comes after President Cyril Ramaphosa announced plans to migrate ECD centres to DBE during the February 2019 State of the Nation Address.
According to Gauteng MEC for Education Panyaza Lesufi, both government and the ECD sector are very critical in the provision of ECD services and share a common principle, which is ‘the best interest of the child’.
“We have ensured that services are still being provided and that they are not affected by the function shift. The GDE will now be responsible to support, subsidise and regulate the programmes across Gauteng in line with chapters 5 and 6 of the Children’s Act.
“The existing governance structures between GDE and DSD will continue to operate to manage the transitional period and to ensure that all levels of service are maintained.”
Lesufi said education functions now include the development of early learning curriculum, continuity and synergy between early learning and Grade R, integration of key health messages in the school curriculum, and training, implementation and monitoring relating to curriculum implementation for birth to four-year-olds.
“The new functions include ensuring universal availability and adequate quality of, and equitable access to, inclusive learning opportunities; and the development, delivery, regulation, registration, quality monitoring, improvement and evaluation of ECD programmes.
“GDE will also engage with providers to determine the options for supporting them to ensure quality outcomes for children.”
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He said that DSD will remain responsible for the functions related to social support and care and support to ECD programmes similar to the support currently provided to learners in schools.
“The remaining DSD functions will include child protection, psycho-social services, the child support grant, access to social services to prevent and address risk factors, parental support programmes, and partial care facilities that relate to after-school services, private hostels and temporary respite care centres.”
Lesufi shared that ECDs now encompass seven strategy pillars:
Pillar 1: Universalisation of Grade R
The department will intensify efforts to ensure universal access to Grade R. To date the Department offered ECD to over 164 000 learners in schools and community-based sites.
“We will be expanding Grade R to all public primary schools regardless of their socio-economic status. Private Grade R sites will be registered through the introduction of provincial regulations, to ensure that there is an adequate mix of public, private and community-based Grade R sites,” said Lesufi.
Pillar 2: Expansion to two years of compulsory ECD before Grade One
The department said two years of early childhood development (ECD) is set to become compulsory for all children before they enter the formal school system in grade one. They are working with the National Sphere on the approach, structure and financing of introducing a second formal year.
Pillar 3: Universalise access to birth to four years ECD programmes
Healthy development in the early years (particularly birth to four) provides the building blocks for educational achievement, economic productivity, responsible citizenship, lifelong health, strong communities, and successful parenting of the next generation.
Pillar 4: ECD HR Development
The department will be developing an ECD Human Resource Strategic Workforce Plan that will build on the existing workforce.
This plan will outline the qualifications that are available for ECD practitioners; the expectations in terms of competencies, skills and qualifications at different levels; flexible opportunities for training and development including recognition of prior learning; clear career paths and conditions of service.
Pillar 5: Infrastructure
The provincial government is committed to building new ECD facilities, enhancing and scale-up teacher training, providing subsidies or establishing ECD centres to ensure that rural, informal settlements and unemployed families have access to early learning opportunities.
Pillar 6: Financing ECD
“As a country, we have policies or action plans that aim to promote holistic early childhood development. But often these commitments are not translated into the budget allocations needed to put them into practice, given the low budget priority of ECD services and the complexities derived from its multi-sectoral nature,” said Lesufi.
Pillar 7: Data, Monitoring and Evaluation
The current early childhood ecosystem is fuelled by extensive knowledge about child development, mountains of data from programme evaluations, and continuing public fascination with the developing brain.
Pillar 8: ECD will remain an integrated service with health and social development
Early childhood development (ECD) services and support for young children and their caregivers cover many different areas and are provided by various sectors, such as health, education, and social and child protection. Examples of these services include antenatal care, routine immunisations, parenting counselling and support, quality childcare and preschool, cash grants for food and other basic expenses, and work leave to bond with a new baby.
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