BRIDGE’s National ECD Community of Practice:

Feedback and draft strategy

10 February 2014

Meetings

• 21 November – Presidency – Percy Moleke and Zanele Twala

• 28 November – Strategy Task Team

• 3 December – National ECD Policy and Programme Provincial Consultation – Gauteng

• November-December – Individual meetings and consultations with a range of stakeholders

• 4 February – Training Task Team

• 7 February – Presidency and Policy Support for Pro-poor Policy Development (PSPPD) Project (incl. DG Murray, Ilifa Labantwana, ELRU, Children’s Institute, etc.)

Presidency

• Cabinet has established an Inter-Ministerial Committee (the Departments involved include DSD, DBE, DHET, Health, Public Works, CoGTA and Finance).

• Purpose: to coordinate and ensure the implementation of the Integrated Programme of Action on ECD.

• Inter-Departmental Task Team to do the ground work and present to a Forum of DDGs and then a Forum of DGs. Recommendations will be presented to the Inter-Ministerial Committee.

• Civil Society must build a powerful and cohesive body as government wants us to be ready.

Presidency and Policy Support for Pro-poor Policy Development (PSPPD)

Project• Project is designed to support the Presidency and NPC.• Working with senior policy makers including the Premier’s offices in

Gauteng, Limpopo, Eastern Cape and KZN. • Focussing on Early Childhood Development as it is a cross-sectoral

focus area affecting both the social and the economic cluster (particularly since EPWP is providing training for ECD practitioners).

There is:• Drive for evidenced-based decision-making (aim to improve

evidence-based policy making and implementation);• Need for cohesion in civil society;• Need for multi-stakeholder collaboration;• Need for information sharing in a repository (project working on

building awareness and skills of policymakers and researchers and strengthening institutions around evidence-based policymaking).

Strategy Task Team• Growing disunity in the ECD sector.• Need cohesion in civil society – we should unite behind a big

objective.• We must not lose sight of what government is trying to achieve

through the NDP.• We as a community will be a mechanism to help government

implement its strategy. • Focus on identifying what shared practice we are saying

government should see as priority.• Spread successful practice for scale and impact. • Consider common denominators and ensure learnings from a range

of models are taken account of in the sector.• National and provincial – incorporate provincial structures into the

CoP, and invite representatives from existing provincial and national ECD networks.

• Advocate for the increase of access to quality ECD by engaging members on establishing the minimum quality essentials for an effective ECD programme.

Next steps

• Identify existing ECD networks in the various provinces and find out what they are doing, who their membership is and pressing issues that they are trying to address.

• Bring key people from these different networks together, to identify ‘tipping points’ in each of the provinces and areas of overlap across the provinces.

• Facilitate discussions/processes on the key themes of scaling up, and systemic reach and impact.

Training task team

• Tasked to create strategy re ensuring consistent standards of assessment for all ECD Practitioners irrespective of where they have been trained.

• Just under 100 ECD accredited training providers.• Concern about the fundamentals – CoP could work with IEB to

develop standards.• In QCTO process, need to select AQP.Questions:1. Who does BRIDGE CoP know who is part of the ECD scoping?2. Who in the industry could fulfil the role of the AQP?3. Who will drive this process and keep BRIDGE CoP informed?4. How will the huge task of being the AQP be funded?5. What mandate does BRIDGE CoP have in terms of standards of ECD training and would this form part of the overall mandate?6. What purpose then is there for a training mandate group within BRIDGE ECD CoP?

Funding

• Funding from:

– Yellowwoods

– Apex Hi

– Sasol

• Applications to:

– Porticus

– Ilifa Labantwana

– Standard Bank

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