Pretoria – Social Development Minister Bathabile Dlamini says early childhood development (ECD) is one of the pillars that will ensure sustained progress as the country looks forward to celebrating 20 years of freedom.
Addressing The New Age business breakfast briefing in Johannesburg, Dlamini said government had made significant strides, with more than 984 000 children accessing ECD services by the end of 2012.
The number of children that are directly subsidised has also increased by more than 100%, from 230 000 children in 1995 to more than 540 000 to date.
“One of the key achievements in this regard was the equalisation of the ECD subsidy for children across all provinces (R15 per child per day). Recently, MINMEC [Ministers and Members of Executive Council] also approved the proposal to increase the number of days children spend at an ECD centre from 165 to 220 per year.
“The number of registered ECD facilities has grown from 4 612 in the 2004/05 financial year to over 21 000 this year,” Dlamini noted.
She further reiterated that ECD has been recognised as a powerful tool in breaking the intergenerational cycle of poverty and in making a real and lasting difference in children’s lives.
Dlamini said government was committed to ensuring that every child, including children from poor socio-economic backgrounds and children with disabilities, has access to ECD at an early age.
“To this end, Cabinet has established an Inter-Ministerial Committee to coordinate and ensure implementation of the Integrated Programme of Action on ECD.
“The National Development Plan: Vision 2030 identifies education as one of the central pillars to South Africa’s long-term development and views ECD as critical for ensuring that children are able to reach their full potential.”
According to the 2011 Census, over 5.6 million South Africans are under the age of four and of this number, it is estimated that 57% of children in this age group do not attend registered ECD centres.
Dlamini said the huge number of children who were not benefiting from ECD services, coupled with other challenges such as poor infrastructure, posed a serious challenge.
“This calls for a holistic, inter-sectoral and integrated action for the common good of our children. Their survival, care and protection is a national priority. This is an important aspect of our social inclusion agenda.”
Audit of ECD centres
Meanwhile, the department is currently conducting an audit of ECD centres to get information on the nature and extent of ECD provisioning, services, resources and infrastructure in order to inform and support on-going policy and planning initiatives.
However, Dlamini noted that while government had taken a lead in this area, it could not do it alone and called for strengthened public private partnerships.
“There is no better time than now for us to work together. The Adopt-an-ECD initiative is a starting point for joint national action to improve universal access to ECD services. This campaign sets an important agenda for the transformation of ECD in South Africa through public private partnerships.”
The 2012 National ECD Conference identified key policy issues in the ECD sector. These included a new comprehensive ECD funding model; amendment of the Children’s Act; improvement of the ECD workforce development; implementation of the minimum national norms and standards; as well as modernisation of ECD infrastructure.
By the end of this financial year, the department aims to finalise a national ECD policy, which will define an essential package of services. – SAnews.gov.za
