House Chair, the question is around the migration of early child development, ECD, from the Department of Social Development to Education. I can report that work has started between ourselves and Social Development.
There is a memorandum of understanding, MOU, in place. There are structures working both at administrative and political level to ensure that we adequately prepare for this migration that has to happen. The first step is to initiate the legal part of it all. So, there are proclamations ready for the President to sign and also provincial MECs which will legally give the authority to the Department of Education to lead in this instance. We are also working with other departments which have a contribution in ECD; the Department of Health, Department of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs and the Department of Planning, Monitoring and Evaluation.
In the meantime there is a process led by the Government Technical Advisory Centre, GTAC, and its function is to make sure that there is a technical team, because it is specified in the handbook, which has to look at function sheets within government and advice different departments on what to do and when. We are working close with them to make sure that there is a smooth transition.
We have established a number of work streams that prepares the system for the streams. Different provinces have started processes and they are at different levels but we are in communication with them. We also have very good facilitations because it is a very busy and congested area.
We are working with the National Education Collaboration Trust to help us consult and work with different stakeholders who are outside the system. We are also developing information systems and engaging different stakeholders, as I mentioned. We have convened meetings with ECD think tanks which involves people who are outside government and those working in government to make sure that we have an integrated ECD programme. We have had a number of round tables and there are meetings we have convened with different stakeholders.
In terms of preparation we have agreed with the Department of Social Development that we will use 2020 to consult and plan properly and then we will start practically migrating functions gradually from 2021 to 2024. So, we have given ourselves three years through which we can transit, but all the way we will be working with Social Development to make sure that it is a smooth transition. Thank you, Chair.