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IPEB’s Work in the Early Childhood Sector
Summary
IPEB has over the last 4 years made a strategic contribution to enhancing integration and collaboration within the children’s sector in KwaZulu-Natal.
Achievements
Achievements over the last four years include:
- Establishing the KwaZulu-Natal Provincial Advisory Council for Children (KPACC) as a significant presence in the children’s sector in South Africa, particularly the province of KwaZulu-Natal
- Establishing the KwaZulu-Natal ECD Technical Committee as a significant force within the ECD sector in KwaZulu-Natal
- Contributing to the establishment of a forum with the KwaZulu-Natal Office of the Rights of the Child and municipalities where issues of substance are engaged in
- Providing constructive pressure on provincial government and civil society in KwaZulu-Natal to grapple with the challenges of establishing a provincial strategic plan for ECD
- Creation of The ECD Story which with careful and strategic action will lead to the establishment of a universal symbol to bring together much of the available energy to fight for the rights of young children
Strategic Issues
This work has been possible through funding from by the Bernard van Leer Foundation based in The Hague. This grant has now ended and IPEB are looking for funding to pursue issues which have strategic potential to benefit the sector:
- Advocacy for young children with a particular focus on finding and establishing a universal symbol which we hope will represent the fight for the rights of young children
- Continue facilitating the KwaZulu-Natal ECD Technical Committee
- Continue supporting government and civil society in developing and implementing a provincial plan for the NIP-ECD
- Co-ordinate the Mr Price/The Teacher Grade R Competition
- Continue working with the Provincial Department of Local and Provincial Government in establishing the Community Development Workers to be advocates for young children in their areas
- Continue development of the KZN ORC Handbook for Municipalities
1. Universal symbol for young children
IPEB has worked with a number of other NGOs and together we have created what is becoming known as The ECD Story. This brings together into a single document the argument why we need to invest in young children. The focus is on developing a hard, economic based argument rather than one based largely on children’s rights. This story has been told to a number of people and organisations and we have found that it resonates. People are excited and some have even commented “now I know why we need to invest in young children”.
A main concern was the realisation that the extraordinary knowledge and wisdom available within the early childhood sector was in many ways confined to the sector, few people beyond the sector really understood the importance of the first few years of a child’s life. Mindful of the power of the business techniques of marketing and branding IPEB negotiated the involvement of Yellowwood - top brand architects and GRID - a top design agency to work on the project on a pro bono basis.
Yellowwood and GRID advised that we needed a symbol to bring together the interest, energy and momentum that was building up around The ECD Story. Not unlike the AIDS Red Ribbon. This led to the development of the PEO symbol and name:
Predictably there are some who are content to work with PEO and others who are less willing.
The basic principles upon which we need to work with PEO are as follows:
- No one must ever have to pay for the use of PEO or The ECD Story
- Everyone must be encouraged to use PEO and or The ECD Story
- No one ‘owns’ PEO or The ECD Story
- We do need to be able to protect PEO and The ECD Story from being used in ways that are not in the best interests of young children
The success of PEO as a universal symbol for young children will be determined by how it is managed. This will require an organisation to promote PEO, provide information, negotiate how it can be used, provide artwork and protect the symbol where necessary.
2. KwaZulu-Natal ECD Technical Committee
We have been very successful in KwaZulu-Natal over a number of years in bringing together on a regular basis a number of stakeholders to engage in key issues affecting the early childhood sector. These issues include
- Review of and submissions on the new children’s Act and Regulations
- Participation in the development of Monitoring and Evaluation framework for the new Children’s Act
- Review of and submissions on the draft 3rd Country Report to the UN
- Participation in the costing of the National Policy Framework and Strategic Plan on the Prevention and Management of Child Abuse
- Pressure on government and input on the implementation of the National Integrated Plan for ECD for KwaZulu-Natal
- Networking between government and NGOs
- Constructive challenges and recommendation on the structure of the ABSA/Sowetan ECD Awards
- Research presentations from the KZN Medical School
- Conference report backs
- Engagement in advocacy issues including The ECD Story, writing monthly articles published in The Teacher, a national publication with a circulation of 70,000 distributed to 30,000 education institutions every month
- Designing and negotiating funding for a national Grade R competition to promote good practice in primary schools
- Participation in child minder policy development workshops
- Distribution of documents and information on research, policy, legislation and conferences
This work needs to continue as it is the only stable, established inter-sectoral structure for engaging in early childhood.
3. Provincial Plan for the National Integrated Plan for Early Childhood Development
National government published the National Integrated Plan for Early Childhood Development (NIP-ECD) in 2005. This document provides the vision and basic structures needed to deliver integrated services to young children. Implementation of the plan has been slow mainly because funding has not been specifically budgeted and because it requires a level of integration between government departments which is difficult to achieve.
What is important about this plan is that it is the only programme that government has to deliver on its 2008 Apex Project 11 commitment, namely to double the number of children benefitting from early childhood development.
The NIP-ECD requires every province to work collaboratively and develop its own provincial plan to implement the NIP-ECD. IPEB are mandated by the KZN ECD Technical Committee to serve on the KZN NIP-ECD Committee as the representative for civil society.
After considerable effort at many levels, we are starting to see progress towards developing a provincial plan in KwaZulu-Natal. The following is an extract from notes of the most recent NIP meeting in KwaZulu-Natal:
The following items were identified for future collaboration between Department of Social Development and Department of Education
- Co-ordinate planning and implementation of policy
- Work together to create an environment to keep 0-4 children in crèche’s
- Getting non DSD registered creche’s, registered
- Collaborate on 0-4 curriculum development
- Co-ordinate training of ECD practitioners and Grade R educators
- Co-ordinate subsidies
- Advocacy
- Availability of data
- Communication
- Enhance awareness of the NIP and its vision in all sectors
4. Grade R Competition
IPEB together with members of the ECD Technical Committee and the ECD Learning Community have been writing articles for The Teacher for the last 12 months. This is part of the strategy to promote knowledge and good practice in Grade R at every opportunity.
IPEB are also in negotiations with Mr Price and the editor of The Teacher (a Mail and Guardian publication) to run a competition for Grade R teachers. Mr Price has agreed to provide R90,000 to fund a R10,000 prize for each of the 9 provinces. The Teacher will run editorial material on the competition for approximately 12 months. The Mr Price Group will distribute competition material through its 400 stores. Both Mr Price and The Teacher are willing to use the PEO symbol in this work. This is an excellent opportunity to promote good practice and PEO.
Administration of the competition will include:
- Preparing text for publication to launch the competition
- Designing the entry form
- Preparing a summary of all the articles written to be included with the entry form
- Setting up and providing the secretariat to a Prize Committee
- Dealing with queries from Grade R teachers
- Receiving, checking and short listing entries
- Visiting short listed entries
- Final selection of winners
- Organising the awards process
- Follow up to ensure the prize money is invested as agreed
5. Community Development Workers
During 2008 IPEB conducted a survey of Community Development Workers (CDWs) in the District of Sisonke with a view to understanding if it was possible and what was needed for CDWs to be advocates for early childhood. It was very clear that that CDWs were willing and able to play a key role in promoting early childhood within their communities. IPEB then worked with UNICEF to deliver a 2 day ECD orientation programme to 20 CDW supervisors and 20 CDWs representing the wards in KwaZulu-Natal. This experience confirmed the finding of the survey that CDWs are the right people to have on board for ECD.
The benefit of the above work will be lost if there is no follow up. We have established credibility and the connections with CDWs and within the Department of Local and Provincial Government (DPLG). We need to follow up and ensure young children stay on the agenda of DPLG and the CDWs.
6. KwaZulu-Natal Office of the Rights of the Child Handbook for Municipalities
IPEB’s work with the KwaZulu-Natal Provincial Advisory Council for Children (KPACC) led to working with municipalities with a view of establishing Local Advisory Councils for Children (LACCs). LACCs are an integral part of the National Co-ordinated Framework for Children which is the government’s strategy for establishing an Office for the Rights of the Child (ORC) at every level of government.
Working with municipal officials it became apparent that not all officials have the knowledge and access to information that they need to promote children’s issues. There were pockets of knowledge and expertise that would be of great value to many officials if ways could be found to share. Officials responsible for children tend to be also responsible for other groups and we needed to find ways of making it easier for them to engage with children’s issues to maximise the impact of their efforts. This led to the idea of developing a Handbook for Children.
The initial draft is circulating but this has led to other issues which need to be resolved. The information available is huge and ways need to be found to make access to relevant sections easy. We need to deliver the information in a way that allows for continual updates as knowledge and understanding improves. We need multiple methods of making the handbook available as not all municipalities have access to fast internet connections. We need to ensure that the Premier’s Office provides for long term hosting of these facilities.
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