The first leg of the Early Childhood Development (ECD) transfer to the Department of Basic of Education (DBE) from the Department of Social Development is underway in the Eastern Cape.
Reports further said all provisions to see the process through have been made and are at the final stages.
More than 1400 ECD centres will form part of the migration and reports said government aims at formalising the ECD education with more advanced skill set and expertise which the DBE possess.
The Eastern Cape Social Development MEC, Siphokazi Mani-Lusithi indicated that the miner delays were due to a consultation process between Human Resource and Labour Department citing the number of employees that must be transferred from social development to DBE.
Mani-Lusithi confirmed that the process will be complete by 1 April 2022 as previously announced by the Minster of Social Development Lindiwe Zulu earlier in the year.
The MEC of education in the Eastern Cape, Fundile Gade said the reason for adopting childhood development stage is to make it professional.
Gade further said the adoption of ECD will assist in reducing learner dropout within the education sector, which is caused by lack of foundation within the developmental phase.
The Social Development sector has been suffering a lot of challenges facing the ECDs and receiving complaints from unhappy communities about people who practiced at the ECDs without the necessary qualifications.
ECD teacher Ayanda Phothelwa welcomes the changes and said it comes as a relief as they sometimes would go for months without being paid by social development.
It happens that we don’t get paid in April, May and June only to get paid in July.
The department of social development has been accused of not caring enough for children to protect them against the abuse from their centres of learning.
The Minister of Social Development, Lindiwe Zulu announced earlier in the year that the handover will officially be finalised on 1 April 2022.
This change was announced by President Cyril Ramaphosa in the 2019 State of the Nation Address. The main reason was said to improve the development of children and quality of their education.
It remains to be seen if the Basic Education sector is ready to cope with this big change under the existing pressure of numerous challenges faced by the department.
