The Cape Winelands District Municipality held an Early Childhood Development (ECD) Summit in Worcester on Tuesday 18 April. <\/p>\n
The reason stems from ongoing difficulties and problems ECD Centres face.<\/p>\n
\u201cNot long ago ECDs fell under the department of social development, but were moved to the department of basic education and are not a function of the municipalities,\u201d explained Cape Winelands District Municipality executive mayor, Helena von Schlicht. <\/p>\n
\u201cBut because of the dire position ECDs currently find themselves in we try and assist them. The district municipality does not receive any funding for this either, but because all people have a constitutional right to a dignified, quality life, we involve ourselves.\u201d <\/p>\n
She added that even though they don\u2019t receive funding they have always budgeted for certain projects within the sphere of ECD\u2019s. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe see this as one of the goals within our rural development sector. What is a concern is that the Cape Winelands as a district has the most unregistered ECD centres in the country. <\/p>\n
\u201cWhen it was still part of the function of Social Development, we had numerous discussions years ago, discussions with specialists on social development platforms and since then things have not really changed. <\/p>\n
\u201cNo legislation was signed off, there was money in budgets, but it was removed again because it wasn\u2019t spent. Billions were made available, but the money was given back to national treasury because nothing was done with it. We all anticipated the new policies and guidelines but it has not arrived yet.\u201d<\/p>\n
As it stands, national currently subsidises only R17 per child per day for 264 days of the year, whereas as prisoners are subsidised R38 per day for the entire year. <\/p>\n
\u201cMy view is if we do not change this we are developing prisons full of people because we are really lacking in support for our young children. Another challenge is infrastructure. ECD centres and their principals and governing bodies can\u2019t afford what is needed. For instance, an ECD needs to have six parking bays available, and we all know in the rural communities there\u2019s barely space to walk sometimes. <\/p>\n
\u201cSo they cannot register if they do not comply, and therefore they are missing out on receiving the subsidy. Nutrition is another challenge, some of these little ones go to school to get a meal, among the other things. ECD teacher development is another problem. There isn\u2019t sufficient development and training of teachers, which is directly influenced by the lack of funding.\u201d<\/p>\n
Therefore, the Mayor holds that ECD centres should be a key focus of national policy and provision by the country as a matter of course. <\/p>\n
\u201cOur country must be forced, or we must work towards a position where we can see the value of our early childhood development,\u201d she said. \u201cThe development of a child starts long before its birth. What we see in the Cape Winelands area as well as globally, especially in the poorer areas, is the stunting of the overall development of children, and that is a challenge, a blockage.\u201d<\/p>\n
ECD centres have also made their concerns known at IDP meetings, mainly asking for funding, land or zoning.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou see the zoning, the local municipalities are responsible for the zoning in their areas,\u201d Von Schlicht said, \u201cand the different municipalities have different zoning criteria so it\u2019s confusing, so the owners are confused as well. That boils down to red tape; withholding the opportunities from our children.\u201d<\/p>\n
She hopes the summit will be a catalyst for much needed changes in favour of Early Childhood Development Centres in the Cape Winelands District.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo what led to this day is the fact that through our IDP meetings we got these questions and we cannot really assist these people because we do not have land and we are not involved with the zoning. We try to give funds and materials and tangible things where possible but as I said we don\u2019t receive a grant, as a municipality we do it through our own funding. <\/p>\n
\u201cSo then towards the end of last year I had a high-level delegation who came to me from this area who said please can you assist us so that we can unpack and try to escalate this. So today is a platform for all the stakeholders to unpack all these challenges. It was done already so many times in previous years and I was warned by some of the stakeholders to not let this only be a talk show so I trust my officials that it will not only be a talk show. This is a ticking time bomb.\u201d <\/p>\n
Currently there are 749 ECDs in the Cape Winelands district, which includes the Stellenbosch, Drakenstein, Breede Valley, Witzenberg and Langeberg municipal areas. Of the 749, 241 were not registered, 49 ECDs\u2019 registration had lapsed, 176s\u2019 were in progress, 245 fully registered and therefore qualified for subsidies, while 22 were conditionally registered and there were seven ECDs with their status defined as unknown. <\/p>\n
\u201cThe total 749 is what we know of,\u201d said Von Schlicht, \u201cbut, you know, there are many ladies, especially in our informal settlements, who take it upon themselves to look after kids without any assistance, the ones we don\u2019t know about.\u201d<\/p>\n
She added ultimately the President of our country will have to give attention to this growing problem. <\/p>\n
\u201cThe stakeholders in the hall will decide what we will do next. I hope we will be able to compile a very thorough and in-depth report. And we will try to take this report further \u2013 to basic education, then to the province and then to national. Because we will have to wait for national to bring the changes, so in layman\u2019s terms we need the President of the country to come out for ECD centres and children, because they shout and nobody hears. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe also have these discussions with municipalities and politically, and everyone buys in but somewhere the information gets stuck and it doesn\u2019t go to national government. <\/p>\n
\u201cAs it was said at the summit it\u2019s a lack of political will. We don\u2019t know why because there were billions made available but not spent. They were given back to Treasury due to lack of policy. This is the conundrum that nobody can understand. Why is it that we leave our small children behind, because they won\u2019t stay that way. <\/p>\n
\u201cThe Cape Winelands is committed, under very challenging circumstances, to assist our ECD centres in the area, to value our little ones because we really understand the challenges they face. We will carry on with this work, trying to make a difference.\u201d <\/p>\n
Former cricketer Vernon Philander also attended the summit. His agency, the Vernon Philander Foundation wants to assist the district municipality in providing cereal for the children.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe developed a cereal that contains all the nutrition a child of that age needs,\u201d he said. \u201cWhen the foundation got involved in handing out food hampers during the pandemic we noticed how many small children were malnourished and this why we want to get involved in this was.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Cape Winelands District Municipality held an Early Childhood Development (ECD) Summit in Worcester on Tuesday 18 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