launch of the Absa-Sowetan Early Childhood Development (ECD) Awards,
Johannesburg
4 October 2007
Riah Phiyega, Group Executive Black Economic Empowerment (BEE), Government
Relations and Corporate Social Investment of Absa
Thabo Leshilo, Editor in Chief of the Sowetan and Sunday World and all other
Leonard Saul of the South African Congress for ECD
Mabel Rantla of the Office on the Rights of the Child in the Presidency
Representatives of the Departments of Education, Social Development and
Health
Ladies and gentlemen
A range of research studies and policy declarations assert that early
childhood education makes a real and lasting difference in children's lives.
This poses a challenge to all public systems of education, in that they have to
ensure that early childhood development becomes a core and integrated part of
education provision.
United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organisation's (Unesco's)
2007 Education for All global monitoring report is devoted to early childhood
care and learning, as that is the first of six Education for All goals. All
countries have committed to achieving the goals by 2015. The report indicates
that Latin America and the Caribbean lead the developing world in the provision
of pre-school education. Sub-Saharan Africa is lagging behind all regions of
the world.
South Africa has several Early Childhood Development (ECD) related policies
that span a range of departments. In 2005 we adopted the integrated ECD Plan
for under four year olds. Implementing departments are Health, Education, and
Social Development. The key objective of the plan is to ensure that ECD sites
become core service provision centres for children, and to meet our 2010 target
of 1 million children in sites that are registered to offer quality care and
support. And 19 000 practitioners will be trained and equipped to be employed
or self employed in this vital sector.
The demand for pre-school education and care is growing as more and more
women find paid employment outside the home. Pre-school is almost universal in
most European countries. For Africa provision in this area offers real
opportunities for income generation and quality care for young children. Study
after study has shown us the benefits of early development programmes.
Subsequent repetition rates are lower, language development is higher, and
primary school completion rates are higher for children who have had access to
early development programmes.
Few of us need to be convinced of the benefits of early learning and care.
The task that we should address is how do we ensure that in every community we
have facilities for children's development? Unfortunately pre-school funding is
low in most countries. The Unesco report finds that over half of United Nations
(UN) member countries allocate less than 5% of total public education
expenditure to ECD. This year, our provinces allocated 1,1% (just under R1
billion) of provincial education expenditure (three percent in the North West
and two percent in the Western Cape) to ECD, this was a huge increase over
2005.
In 2005 we held a consultative conference on ECD and much of our push for
funding and carer training in early learning comes from the impetus that that
conference provided to the sector. In South Africa the Department of Social
Development is the lead department for services to children under the age of
four. Their responsibility is to manage the registration of the 9 000 ECD
sites, as well as to provide a subsidy for those children who require it. The
subsidy ranges from R4,50 per day to R11 per day according to the provincial
determinations.
The subsidy is used to provide care (physical care, support systems, day
time nutrition), pay for approved personnel, provide an educational programme,
and other overhead expenses (furniture, equipment, educational material and
maintenance). The Department of Education is responsible for the training of
the carers in the registered sites. Training is essential and yet at the moment
ECD carers typically receive less training than primary-school teachers.
Qualified educators in primary schools that offer grade R or an ECD opportunity
often work alongside untrained childcare workers, many of them part-time or
volunteers. One of the reasons for the low wage levels of the carers is that we
have not yet determined an agreed minimum wage in early childhood care and
education. This is a matter that we will be investigating further.
This is what other countries are already looking into. Grade R provision
continues to be an important budget priority. In fact funding for this phase of
education has risen dramatically in the past three years. Our aim is to ensure
universal grade R enrolment by 2010. Currently two in three children are in
grade R in schools or in community centres. Currently 8 497 schools out of 1
490 primary schools offer grade R classes. By 2010 all primary schools should
be supported to offer grade R. It is in this context that I am particularly
excited to be part the Absa-Sowetan ECD awards.
Awards are a well recognised way of drawing attention to excellence. Given
our practice of tending to focus on the negative, such awards acknowledge that
there are many people making a positive contribution in education. I am pleased
to be associated with this ECD Award process as it supports our aim of
recognising and acknowledging quality and excellence in the provision of early
learning and care in South Africa.
I see this initiative playing an important role in motivating our ECD
teachers, practitioners, caregivers, parents and organisations. The recognition
of individual contributions in ECD is critical, especially because work related
to young children has been undervalued for too long. I hope that these awards
will continue to highlight the importance of early learning for our
children.
Thank you.
Issued by: Department of Education
4 October 2007
Source: Department of Education (http://www.education.gov.za)
