Principals of Mitchell’s Plain creches will join a national campaign for government to increase support for early childhood development (ECD).
Mitchell’s Plain Educare Forum chairperson Karrimah Jacobs, said laying the foundation for a good education was crucial and that it started at ECD centres.
The forum, constituting 120 ECDs in Mitchell’s Plain, will join hundreds of principals across the region in a march to Parliament, in Cape Town CBD, on Friday January 25.
They will hand over a memorandum which includes demands for subsidies for all children at registered educares; a subsidy increase of the more than R15 a child a day and that pre-grade pupils, aged 4½ years, should remain in creche and not be accepted at primary schools.
It has been nine months, since the minimum requirements policy by the Department of Higher Education and Training (DHET) for ECD tertiary qualifications was gazetted.
It puts in place qualification programmes for ECD teachers in the National Curriculum Framework (NCF).
Ms Jacobs said the South African Congress of Early Childhood Development (SACECD), which she represents, wants the department to relook its policy.
They also want qualified ECD teachers to be paid in full by the government and not receive the “measly” salaries, from already struggling ECD centres.
“If the teachers are qualified then they must be paid accordingly,” said Ms Jacobs.
She said the gap between further education and training colleges and ECD forums had to be bridged immediately.
“This disconnect cannot continue because the children’s learning development is suffering,” she said.
Ms Jacobs said the congress was concerned that Cape Peninsula University of Technology (CPUT) was the only institution to offer a full-time ECD programme for teachers to complete their Bachelor of Education or Early Childhood Care or Education (ECCE); and that they could only complete their Diploma in ECCE at Rhodes University, the University of Fort Hare or Walter Sisulu University from next year onwards.
“Our teachers can ill afford to be without work,” she said.
She said it had been the experience of teachers in the forum that they had their National Diploma in Early Childhood Development Le-
vel 5 but could not help or were not employed at primary schools.
The diploma was de-
vised to provide access to a recognised teachers’ qualification at Le-
vel 6 for ECD teachers, who have a Level 5 certificate in ECD.
It was instituted to enable teachers to plan and implement a learning programme which was based on theirknowledgeof childdevelopment from birth to 4 years and which helps children in a specific phase work towards achieving the learning outcomes of the national school curriculum.
The gazette says Higher Education ECD qualifications were not appropriate for teaching in schools and should not be used but ECD teachers could, with credit recognition, complete a teaching qualification and vice versa.
Amanda Sickle is the founder of non-profit Reading Room, which helps children with reading challenges, and she has several years of experience in the ECD sector. She said Level 5 equipped teachers sufficiently to teach Grade R.
She said the new policy might be crippling the current Level 5 teachers because they would, in essence, be unqualified to teach Grade R at schools.
“This policy is forcing the ECD Level 5 teacher to pursue an education degree (which is often three to four years) before embarking on actual teaching,” she said.
Ms Sickle said that by the time a teacher, who would have been teaching today, qualified, the Grade R pupil (of today) would be in Grade 3 or 4 – and so the cycle continued.
“The teacher in the reception year gives the learner a foretaste of formal education,” she said.
She said life-long learning was important and that the higher education qualifications would push teachers to continue learning but that it should not be at the expense of the pupils.
“The education sector, civil society, government and tertiary institutions have a responsibility towards future generations to equip today’s learner to be tomorrow’s leader – keeping in mind that having a leader who reads, writes and comprehends will be in a better position to make informed decisions than a leader who just leads,” she said.
“If we want to build our nation, then we have to realise that it is imperative to invest in the early learning years of a child’s life; we have to get the learning foundation right, and we have to keep it simple,” she said.
Millicent Merton, spokeswoman for the WCED, said they provided a subsidy to school governing bodies (SGB) to pay ECD Level 5 teachers.
“When Grade R becomes compulsory, post Level 1 qualifications will be the minimum requirement,” she said.
She said ECD teachers were remunerated by the Department of Social Development from their Norms and Standards funding and that
SGBs received Grade R Norms and Standards funding, of which 80% was used towards teachers’ salaries.
Cayla Ann Tomas Murray, spokeswoman for Social Development MEC Albert Fritz, said Grade R was not the department’s responsibility unless its partial care facilities (PCF) offered it.
“The department provides facilities with a subsidy, and we recommend that 40% of the subsidy is utilised towards paying teachers’ salaries,” she said.
Ms Tomas Murray said principals were encouraged to send their unqualified ECD teachers for training at the various Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) colleges to obtain a basic qualification, which is the Level 1 ECD qualification.