Joburg City moves into legalising Preschool Practitioners

JOHANNESBURG – The City of Johannesburg administers the graduation ceremony of Early Childhood Development (ECD) Practitioners.

August 7, 2019

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Following the tragic death of two children in June 2019 as a result of rat poisoning, the MMC for Health and Social Development, Dr. Mpho Phalatse administered the graduation ceremony of Early Childhood Development (ECD) Practitioners on 5 August.

The graduation follows the efforts of ensuring that the ECD sector is legalised and complies with all City by-laws so as to ensure that children are taken care in environmentally conducive spaces and that the events of June are never repeated.

“The City has embarked on an awareness drive where departments and civil society organisations are requested to contribute to ensuring that our children are in a healthy and safe environment,” said Phalatse.

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On 26 June, the City of Johannesburg launched an early childhood development (EDC) blitz to ensure the nursery schools operate legally. The MMC said the aim of the unannounced visits to nursery schools was to ensure that they comply with the city’s standard.

“We will be making an unannounced visit to five ECD facilities, checking if they are compliant or not. We will, of course, look at the safety of children as a consideration. We will look at health and hygiene standards. Where there’s absolutely no safety for the children we will, unfortunately, have to close down those facilities. We will have to work with them towards compliance and doing it the right way. They will open at such time that they ready to serve our children.”

Today the MMC of @cojhealth cllr @mphophalatse1 is joined by officials of the City from her department, the @CoJDevPlanning, @JoburgMPD and local councillors for the launch of the Early Childhood Development Blitz. #EarlyChildhoodBlitz ^LM pic.twitter.com/LKNfyHaV1T

— City of Joburg (@CityofJoburgZA) June 26, 2019