Address by the Minister of Education, Naledi Pandor, MP, at the Early Childhood Development Conference, Birchwood Conference Centre, Johannesburg

28 February 2005

Ladies and gentlemen, as most of you will know, this year we celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Freedom Charter, in which a commitment was made to open the doors of learning and culture to all.

It is an appropriate moment to reflect on whether we have taken significant steps towards achieving that important goal.

The education sector has achieved a great deal in ten years of freedom. Thousands of our teachers are now better qualified, pro-poor nutrition programmes ensure that young learners do not go hungry at school, our participation rates are comparable to those in developed countries, more girls than boys participate in secondary school and girls do better than boys at key competency tests, the backlogs in infrastructure have been aggressively reduced, and early childhood development and Grade R programmes have been significantly expanded.

The focus in the past few years has been on phasing in the reception grade (grade R), a preparation year prior to entering primary school, in both community based and public schools.

The recent expansion of enrolment (by just under 12 per cent per year) of five-year-olds in the reception grade suggests that the goal of (full) enrolment of 800,000 five-year-olds in publicly funded reception grade education will be reached by 2010. Moreover, the expansion of ECD has enabled the training in ECD activities of a number of people in poorer communities as practitioners and assistants.

There are still inequalities in access to pre-primary education. The department’s ECD audit in 2000 revealed that almost twice as many children in urban areas received pre-primary education as in rural areas.

We know that poverty is worst in our rural areas. The ministerial committee on rural education reported last week, and there are some important recommendations it made that we will soon put into practice. But we know that more needs to be done in regard to pre-primary education for the 6.4 million children under 7 years old. And more in particular needs to be done to enrol children with disabilities in ECD provision.

Our particular challenge here is that nearly a quarter of our children under 5 are stunted and one in 10 underweight for their age. The youngest and those in rural areas are worst affected. We know that maternal education is the key to child survival and that women in rural areas have suffered most from the legacy of inadequate education under apartheid.

What this means is that many children are simply unprepared for the transition to formal schooling. And the evidence is clear for all to see in the results of the key competency tests, like the one last year that found more than 60% of Grade 3s in the Western Cape are not achieving literacy and numeracy levels required by the national curriculum and 15% could not read or calculate at the most basic level.

I expressed my concern about these results at the time and I do so again now. Our response is to strengthen those interventions that improve quality. And a further response is to strengthen intergovernmental collaboration.

As we all know, children’s needs and their care cuts across various fields of study, departments, institutions, and organisations.

This was acknowledged in White Paper 5, where there was a commitment to the development of a strategic plan for inter-sectoral collaboration.

A draft integrated plan has been developed by the education department, in collaboration with the office on the rights of the child, the department of social development and the department of health. This is going through governmental approval processes, and should be ready for implementation in April 2005.

We have realised that this is an enormous task, and are engaging with the NGOs and with other ECD stakeholders in realising our vision.

This conference is a first attempt in this country to bring together different interest groups nationally and internationally to discuss, and debate issues to construct knowledge relating to integrated/ inter-sectoral planning and service delivery for young children.

The main groups represented in this conference are parents, ECD practitioners, teachers and trainers. There are also government officials from the departments of social development, office on the rights of the child in the President’s office, education, local government, health and correctional services. Many national and international ECD organisations and institutions are also represented.

Internationally we recognise that even though the world is becoming more and more aware of the need to invest in young children, UNICEF’s State of the World’s Children Report (2005) indicates that half of the world’s 2 billion children live in dire poverty and deprivation.

I would like us to acknowledge that it is a challenge for our country to be hosting this conference at this time and in the face of this urgent need to improve the provision of ECD services. We know and remember that young children suffered tremendously through various forms of deprivations under apartheid.

As we move into the second decade of our freedom and democracy, we have time to reflect and assess how far we have gone to change and improve the lives of our children and to identify ways in which we can increase access to resources and services particularly for orphaned and other vulnerable children.

We are currently, led by the department of social development, in the process of refining the children’s bill. Once legislated the bill will provide the legal basis for provisioning and planning for children’s needs.

ECD is very close to my heart.

I am fascinated by how children grow and learn.

As a parent I have had the pleasure and privilege of raising my own children. I played with them, taught them, guided them, and ensured that they were cared for and loved. Motherhood and the new demands made on fatherhood are roles to be treasured, and society needs to recognise these roles in order to ensure that children are well protected and nurtured.

What is the right balance between the roles and responsibilities of parents and the state?

The early years of a child’s life are precious for the critical learning that takes place. Parents are always a baby’s first educators. But a child needs to have access to early learning so that he or she can be set on the path towards structured learning. We all know that learning through play increases a child’s focus and attention at school and in turn improves their chances of being successful later in life. Language skills, number skills, and learning to share all grow when quality early learning provision is available.

That is why I am determined that effective early learning should be available, affordable, and accessible to all.

But we have this strange habit in South Africa in thinking that the state is responsible for everything.

Although the government is currently improving access to health care and social grants, the role of parents in ensuring that their children actually access these services is very critical. In addition, parents must do what they can, often in difficult circumstances, to keep their children healthy and safe. The state is obligated to provide necessary support where there is a need and to create job opportunities where possible.

The early childhood development programme – as proposed by education white paper 5 - uses a model of implementation that seeks to develop ECD practitioners in the communities in which they live, thus stimulating skills development and job opportunities. An estimated 19 800 predominantly female parents and care givers will be trained over a five-year period, so as to improve the quality of ECD provision for children aged 0 to 4 years old in the same communities. Furthermore, 10 000 educators will be trained for 5 year olds in the reception grade at schools.

This can only be beneficial for the development and success of children after they leave ECD programmes and enter the schooling system. The investment in ECD will pay off in lower repetition, higher achievement, and better cognitive development of our children when they enter the schooling system.

What is the right balance between the role of the state and the role of civil society organisations?

Much work has been done in collaboration with non-government organisations and donor agencies. These donors have made a difference to the lives of young people through the funding of different ECD programmes, mostly targeting children under five. We would like to learn from those experiences, and it is through this conference that you can share lessons learned with us.

We need to continue working hand in hand with organisations that are providing services to children on the ground so as to improve our current initiatives and develop new life-changing strategies for all in the ECD sector.

One important aspect in helping to improve the way we provide services to children is in the inclusion of research, monitoring and evaluation in ECD programme development and implementation.

These three processes provide a basis for not only improving what we do for children but also when used appropriately they enable us to be more efficient and effective in the use of all available resources.

It is therefore critical that we create time and space in ECD for research that is linked to new initiatives. We should also make use of existing research from our different countries to learn and share from each other’s experiences and skills in this aspect.

Ladies and Gentlemen, we are privileged to be hosting this conference in the interests of young children, and would like to see it as the beginning of realising the vision that we have for the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD), where through engagements like these, we are able to share ideas and resources on meeting the ECD challenges.

I would like to conclude by saying, in the words of Kofi Annan: ““Can there be a more sacred duty than our obligation to protect the rights of a child as vigilantly as we protect the rights of any other person? Can there be a greater test of leadership than the task of ensuring these freedoms for every child, in every country, without exception.”

Thank you