/ 12 August 2011

Marching for more rights — again

The South African Congress for Early Childhood Development threatens to march

The South African Congress for Early Childhood Development is threatening to march to Parliament in Cape Town.

It has been two months since about 2000 ECD practitioners, including crèche principals, managers, trainers and teachers, took to the streets of Pretoria to deliver a memorandum to the presidency (“Early childhood development practitioners will protest”, Mail & Guardian, May 27).

The memorandum demanded the presidency respond “adequately” by July 31, but Leonard Saul, the congress’s chief executive, said this week “there has been no official response from the government yet”.

In the memorandum, practitioners said they are tired of being “marginalised”. They demanded that the government make funds available to improve formal qualifications for practitioners so that they can be given a “basic living wage”. They wanted increased funding to upgrade ECD centres and a review of the state subsidy per child per day, which is currently a “meagre” R12.

In Unesco’s definition, which South Africa largely follows, ECD encompasses all services provided to children from birth to nine years of age – the most important developmental stage for a child. A nationwide audit of ECD in 2000 showed that 60% of ECD sites operated below the poverty line, a picture that has remained mostly static.

Government representative Eugene Mthethwa, who received the memorandum on behalf of the presidency two months ago, said last week the document would be forwarded to the education and social development departments.

Said Saul: “Our national executive committee is in the process of planning a march to Cape Town.” Details of the march are still to be finalised.