The Department of Basic Education (DBE) is committed to creating an enabling registration process to facilitate the registration of more ECD programmes. To this end, the DBE has conducted the ECD Census to determine the number of unregistered ECD programmes and to identify areas that may require additional registration support. The Department has also held a broad stakeholder engagement session on 30 November 2021 to better understand the challenges in the registration process. It is recognised that there is a multitude of challenges facing ECD programmes in the registration process and the Department has been working alongside the Department of Social Development in the Second Children’s Amendment Bill to, among other things, address some of the challenges which arise from the legislation, regulations, norms and standards. Similarly, the Department is in the process of ensuring that an online registration capturing system is in place, come 01 April 2022, to streamline the back-end processes related to registration.
The Department has been very clear in all communication to the sector that the function shift will not be resulting in additional resources to the sector. Supported by the National Education Collaboration Trust (NECT), the Department has held a series of stakeholder dialogues aimed at, among others, communicating facts about the function shift. Furthermore, the communication teams from both Departments, are working on a communication plan to ensure that this message is consistently communicated across all the provinces.
The Department has had multiple meetings with the National Treasury to seek any additional funding for ECD. National Treasury has been clear that there will be no additional funding for the 2021/22 financial year, but that they have included ECD as a top priority in subsequent years. The Department will be working very closely with the National Treasury in the 2022/23 financial year to build a business case for additional funding. This business case will build on the evidence collected through the ECD Census (advocating for expanding access) and the Thrive by Five Index (proving the impact of the funding currently being spent). Integrating ECD into the Education Management Information System (EMIS) will further help with building credibility regarding the recipients of the subsidy.