President Cyril Ramaphosa
President Cyril Ramaphosa recently chaired the first-ever meeting of the Inter-Ministerial Committee (IMC) on Early Childhood Development (ECD). This assembly deals a progressive step towards ensuring that South African children, particularly those in vulnerable conditions, receive comprehensive ECD services.
A holistic approach was the centrepiece of discussions as multiple national departments pledged to work hand-in-hand. The meeting’s core objectives were to lay the foundation of the IMC by approving a Terms of Reference, demarcate the roles of each department in delivering ECD services, pinpoint priority areas for ECD initiatives, and endorse a unified outcome-focused monitoring and evaluation framework to gauge the effectiveness of these programmes.
Addressing the IMC, President Ramaphosa hailed ECD as the bedrock of the country’s future prosperity and development. He underscored the critical importance of ensuring equitable ECD opportunities for all children, highlighting that such actions could significantly transform educational achievements and foster inclusive economic growth.
“Equitable access to comprehensive early childhood development opportunities is the cornerstone of improved educational outcomes and inclusive economic growth. Progress towards expanding these opportunities, and ensuring that no child is left behind, therefore, needs to be early and rapid,” stated President Ramaphosa.
Amongst the cadre of ministers forming the IMC are officials from Basic Education, Health, Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs, Social Development, Higher Education and Training, Employment and Labour, Sport, Arts and Culture, Correctional Services, Home Affairs, Planning, Monitoring and Evaluation, Police, and Finance. This multidisciplinary team is set on revolutionizing ECD services through a shared strategy, focusing intensely on supporting the nation’s most susceptible children.
The gathering resulted in the unanimous decision to adopt a collaborative modality for ECD service provision, emphasizing integrated support for unleashing children’s potential, and agreeing on priority areas to focus on over the next five years. Such a cooperative ethos intends to amalgamate diverse resources and expertise across departments to create a seamless ECD service network accessible to every South African child.
Critical to this endeavour is the role of the South African Police Service, tasked with deploying necessary measures to protect children, and the indispensable support from the National Treasury and the Department of Planning, Monitoring, and Evaluation to help actualize the departments’ ECD mandates.
Five primary objectives have been earmarked to guide the IMC’s ECD agenda:
- Ensuring all children have access to suitable, affordable ECD programmes.
- Fostering improved collaboration amongst government and social sector partners.
- Directing adequate funding and resources towards vulnerable communities.
- Developing a well-supported and proficient ECD workforce.
- Elevating programme quality through robust support and monitoring mechanisms.
Furthermore, the committee concurred on formulating an outcomes-based framework, leveraging the Thrive by Five Index to monitor progress. This index is instrumental in ensuring that by the age of five, children achieve milestones crucial for their development and readiness for school.
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