Change is afoot in the world of early childhood development. To prepare themselves local stakeholders gathered for the first West Coast ECD Conference.
Saldanha Bay Municipality, in collaboration with the Western Cape Government and West Coast District Municipality, hosted the first West Coast ECD Conference at the Protea Hotel in Saldanha on 23 and 24 May.
“The objective of the 2019 West Coast ECD Conference as a Whole of Society Approach (WoSA) initiative, was to improve the standard of service delivery to children, through developing a collaborative approach with local, provincial and national government, state-owned institutions, the private sector and civil society,” spokesperson Ethne Julius said in a statement.
Mareldia Tape, director of Grassroots Educare Trust, says there is a lot of preparation needed if Early Childhood Development centres are to become part of the Department of Basic Education.
President Cyril Ramaphosa announced in his 2019 State of the Nation address that ECD will be moved from the Department of Social Development to Basic Education.
“We can see that 3 or 4-year-olds will be too young to function in a formal school structure,” Tape pointed out.
She says the way forward is not necessarily to get ECD into schools but rather to keep ECD centres functioning as a sector within basic education.
“Of course these programmes, like the Playgroup Programme, must be compliant. The programme also means that unemployed parents will be employed,” she explains.
Speaker Prof Eric Atmore, who has spent decades studying the ECD field, spoke on the state of ECD in the country. He says although many strides have been made since 1994 much more needs to be done to ensure every child has access to quality ECD services.
“Funding is a major challenge. The government provides ECD centres with a R16 grant per child for 260 days of the year. In contrast the grant for prisoners is R400 per day for 365 days,” Atmore said. This illustrates the lack of political will to make ECD a priority.
. The next West Coast ECD Conference is scheduled for 2021.
