Address by Dr Zola Skweyiya at the Early Childhood Development registration drive, Temba Stadium, Hammanskraal

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