registration drive, Temba Stadium, Hammanskraal
11 October 2007
Dumelang
Ladies and gentlemen
Distinguished guests
Members of the community
During 1992, we in the African National Congress (ANC) met to prepare for
government and we produced national policy guidelines which we aptly titled
"Ready to Govern". In those guidelines we set for ourselves broad policy
objectives which elaborated on our movements established principles. We also
took the opportunity to reiterate our long established liberation goals, as
established by the Freedom Charter, so that we could provide guidance to our
social, political and economic self determination objectives in order to
overcome the Apartheid legacy.
Even then we recognised that these objectives would not be realised unless
we "provide and finance early childhood edu-care". Accordingly, in developing
the Constitution we set ourselves the objective of ensuring that "Every child
enjoys the right to basic nutrition, shelter, basic health care services and
social services." We cannot therefore afford to shy away from the fact that
access to basic social services is the right of all children.
Consequently, one of government's key priorities for this and succeeding
periods is its commitment to accelerating Early Childhood Development (ECD)
programmes. We cannot ignore this objective, more so because children aged
between zero and four constitute almost ten percent of the country's total
population. In response to this imperative we have developed the National
Integrated Plan for Early Childhood Development which seeks to provide our
children a better start in life.
This plan establishes a solid foundation of physical, emotional,
psychosocial, cognitive and healthy development for our children. To
effectively advance this my department will do all that is within its powers to
ensure that all public and civil society programmes for children under the age
of five-years are quantitatively and qualitatively supported. This plan is our
contribution towards ensuring that our children grow up in an environment that
is conducive to their care, development and protection.
This plan is also supported by the Tshwaragano ka Bana Programme.
Tshwaragano Ka Bana is a Sotho phrase which means "Working together for
Children". The plan involves the departments of Health, Education and Social
Development. It seeks to facilitate sector wide cooperating in the delivery of
services to children, which services include health checks, social grants and
services, as well as age-relevant educational programmes. In addition, the
programme will provide training and employment, especially for rural women,
under the auspices of the Expanded Public Works Programme (EPWP).
This integrated plan, we have referred to, is guided by numerous
international conventions, declarations and treaties aimed at the protection
and development of children. These include, to name a few, the United Nations
Convention on the Rights of the Child and the African Charter on the Rights and
Welfare of the Child. The plan is also underpinned by national policies and
programmes which include our Constitution, National Plan for the Promotion and
Protection of Human Rights and the National Plan of Action for Children.
We therefore remain committed to securing Early Childhood Development (ECD)
services for all our children. This we do because we believe that these
services constitute a critical vehicle through which children can access all
their rights. To this end, the Department of Social Development has the
responsibility to register all places of care (ECD sites) where more than six
children are cared for away from their parents or caregivers. This includes ECD
Centres/ crèches, playgroups, after-school centres, or a combination of all
three. Today, during our October Social Development month, we launch our
registration campaign for ECD services because we seek to raise awareness on
all legal requirements related to ECD services and centres.
Ladies and gentlemen, we chose to raise awareness because we understand that
the maximisation of livelihood of the human life cycle requires a heavy
investment in the early childhood phase. Such an investment is more likely to
ensure a better start in life which can translate to improved health, proper
nutrition and early learning. This well-being of children does, to an extent,
depend on the ability of families to function effectively.
Children need to grow up in a nurturing and secure family environment that
can facilitate for their development, protection, survival and participation in
society. From an environmental perspective it means safe water, basic
sanitation and protection from violence, abuse, exploitation and
discrimination. These are imperatives that work best together and lay the
foundation for life. It is therefore unacceptable that thousands of children
continue to live outside such nurturing environments. It is also unacceptable
that the reported cases of ill-treatment and neglect of children (according to
South African Police Service) tripled in Hammanskraal last year. One more child
neglected or abused is one too many!
If we are to secure our collective futures we cannot continue to stand aside
and watch people squander the futures of our children. We have therefore begun,
in earnest, our work of ensuring a South Africa fit for all children by putting
in place the child protection register in all our provinces.
Programme Director, this work will support all our efforts aimed at putting
children first and will ultimately ensure that in the long run we strengthen
our families. The accrued benefits will not only impact positively on our
children and their families, but our communities and the economy stands to
benefit. It is therefore critical to invest in children as they form a critical
component on human capital which is a key catalyst to economic growth.
Early and appropriate human development interventions also save future
public expenditure, since less will be spent on health care, education and
social security in the longer term. ECD services are, indeed, a cardinal
poverty eradication intervention. We will, in the years to come, ensure that we
also bring parity in service quality in all our ECD facilities. To effectively
do so we have agreed with all the MECs that we will endeavour to equalise
subsidies to the centres across all provinces.
Consequently, from next financial year we will ensure that all provinces
provide a subsidy of at least nine rands per child, per day. This commitment
will be accompanied by quality assurance measures which are directed at
ensuring effective service delivery in all ECD programmes. Aspects associated
with quality include the sustainability of the facility, infrastructure and
practitioner qualifications. It should also be remembered that parents or
guardians have a vital role to play in ensuring that the ECD centres that they
leave their children at, are registered with the Department of Social
Development. This will assist the department in identifying errant ECD
centres.
However, the department's role is not only limited to monitoring and
evaluation of ECD centres, but also to providing assistance to those centres
that do not meet the requirements for registration, to bring their facilities
up to standard. In this regard, at least 1 500 additional ECD sites have been
registered in the period from April 2006 to March 2007. An additional 1 774
sites will be registered in the current year. Three hundred and sixty-nine
(369) new sites have already been registered since April 2007.
This brought the number to over 314 thousand children from poor households
who receive subsidies from the Department in the past financial year. An
additional 435 000 children are targeted to receive subsidies in the current
financial year. We are not hung up on numbers. We believe our responsibility to
be one of also ensuring that all ECD programmes involve the development of the
capacity of the parents and primary caregivers in an active manner. To this
end, the department has developed the Guidelines and Training Manual for ECD
Services.
These have facilitated for the training of national and provincial officials
who will in turn train other public servants, civil society workers, and
private sector practitioners. The department cannot do this all this work alone
and must ensure that partnerships direct all of our work. We have therefore
begun to engage the Department of Provincial and Local Government (DPLG) and
local authorities. We believe that the DPLG and local authorities have a
contribution to make towards service provision of early childhood development
services, especially as far as these facilities are concerned.
We are well aware of the challenges facing the sector and service providers
in the sector. We will utilise this Social Development Month and the months to
come to engage the sector and service providers in the sector. Our view is
clear nothing about ECD, without the engagement of children and service
providers.
Our first step in this engagement is to register each and every facility
whilst noting the conditions in all of them. We will accelerate this
registration and ensure quicker turn around times, whilst also giving all of
you continuous feedback. For us this objective is far too important to wait any
longer, for we are loosing generations and builders of our newfound
democracy.
That is why we must all encourage and ensure our children attend an ECD
facility, prior to embarking on the first year of schooling. We cannot afford
the persisting trend that shows that one in every 31 children is undertaking
economic activities for 12 hours or more a week. I am not saying that children
must not undertake their household chores. After all, we all undertook chores
and they have the possibility of instilling a sense of discipline and
accomplishment.
What I am saying is that we must by all means avoid child labour, in all its
forms. It is our view that child labour:
* denies children an education
* also endangers children's health
* has the potential for fostering a super-exploitative relationship between
child-worker and employer.
Let me conclude by thanking the thousands of caregivers who have thus far
begun to mould the canvass of our future. They have given unselfishly their
time and energies sometimes with very little or nothing in remuneration. Kere
le ka moso.
Let me also take this opportunity to encourage young people to take the time
in also giving their time to ensuring the development of these young minds and
subsequently the future of our country. We acknowledge and welcome the critical
role you will be playing in taking care of these children. You will also assist
us in reaching key international development goals such as the Millennium
Development Goals, which seeks to (among others) reduce by two thirds the
mortality rate among children under five. The registration of ECD sites will go
a long way towards achieving this target as well as those of eradicating
poverty and achieving universal primary education.
We can thus further our vision of creating a society that facilitates human
development and improves the quality of life and in doing so let pessimism give
way to optimism, despair give way to hope, despondency give way to exultancy in
creating a better life for all.
I thank you.
Issued by: Department of Social Development
11 October 2007
