Pretoria – Officials are in the process of establishing the Forum of Deputy Directors-General to help roll out the Early Childhood Development (ECD) Action Plan.
Social Development Minister Bathabile Dlamini says the forum will support the functions of the existing National Inter-departmental Committee for ECD.
Speaking at the launch of the South African Child Gauge 2013 in Cape Town, Dlamini said as part of implementing the ECD Action Plan, the country will have a new ECD policy and programmes to scale up the delivery of quality services.
“The new ECD policy will provide guidance on the removal of service delivery bottlenecks, particularly in the area of human resource development, funding and institutional arrangement.
“The early childhood development programmes will prioritise the accelerated delivery of a package of essential services for the first 1 000 days of life, as well as for children up to the school going age,” Dlamini said.
She said her department was in the process of establishing mechanisms for all stakeholders to contribute to the preparation of this new policy and programmes.
She emphasised that within the South African context, early childhood development has the potential to break the cycle of inter-generational poverty and inequality, and enhance the country’s development trajectory.
She stressed the need to address the current discrepancies in access to and quality of early childhood development by prioritising services for children living in poor urban and rural communities, and those with disabilities.
“Appropriate funding models for ECDs are important because greater investment in infrastructure and human resources is needed to ensure quality and equitable access.
“Government currently subsidises ECD centres at a rate of R15 per child per day. Fifty percent of the R15 is utilised for the nutritional needs of the child, 30% contributes to the salaries of the ECD practitioners and support staff, and 20% is utilised for stimulation material and administrative costs.
“During the 2012/13 financial year, the department and its numerous partners increased the number of children accessing early childhood programmes up to school-going age by 15%. In accordance with the Children’s Act, we will endeavour to double our efforts in the coming years,” Dlamini said.
The department is currently conducting an audit of ECD centres to obtain information on the nature and extent of early childhood development provisioning, services, resources and infrastructure in order to inform and support on-going policy and planning initiatives.
She also reiterated that the purpose of audit was not to close down any centres, but to assist those that do not meet the required norms and standards through capacity building.
She urged, especially the private sector, to join hands with government by adopting an ECD centre and secure the needed resources through the “Adopt-an-ECD” campaign run by the National Development Agency.
“Our aim as government is that every ward in the country must have at least one early childhood centre,” said Dlamini.
Access and quality
UNICEF South Africa representative, Aida Girma, said that early childhood development programmes can be centre- or home-based, formal or non-formal.
“We therefore need interventions through various channels such as home visits, playgroups, ECD centres, multi-purpose centres, clinics and schools that reach children and families in different contexts, especially the most vulnerable,” Girma said.
Co-editor from the organisation Early Learning Resources Unit, Linda Biersteker, underscored the importance of improving access to quality early learning programmes, noting that access for children in poor and rural communities was very limited.
“Where there are ECD centres, caregivers must pay fees to top up government subsidies, making such centres largely unaffordable for the majority of young children. Furthermore, the quality of early learning and teaching in ECD centres, as well as in grade R to grade 3, needs urgent attention and requires better trained practitioners and teachers,” said Biersteker. – SAnews.gov.za
