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 Propoor 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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