Department of Basic Education urges early childhood development operators to participate in the mass registration drive

The Department of Basic Education has commenced the registration process of Early Childhood Development programmes that are operating outside the regulated system.

Nationally, at least half of all ECD programmes are currently unregistered and are attended by tens of thousands of children. This means that more than 20 000 ECD programmes operate outside the regulatory framework and are not part of any formal oversight process which disproportionately affects ECDs in low-income areas meaning the poorest children are most likely to miss out on oversight and funding.

The DBE’s Bana Pele ECD Mass Registration Drive puts our “children first” and is an important initiative to register ECD programmes at scale to ensure every child is receiving quality early learning, development opportunities and a safe and nurturing environment.

Early childhood development (ECD) is a critical period in a child’s life that lays the foundation for future learning, behaviour and health.
The goals of the drive are as follows:
• To enable government to have oversight of out-of-home setting where children are cared for
• To support ECD programmes to comply with legal requirements
• To ensure that more ECDs can apply for the subsidy for children from low-income households
• To make registration administration processes quicker and less resource intensive for officials, ECD practitioners and social service professionals

The threshold for system-entry is more realistic and attainable to reflect and accommodate the complex, varying and real-life contexts in which ECDs operate in South Africa. Practitioners receive live support from a contact center agent to complete their applications on our new and robust Early Childhood Administrative and Reporting System (eCares).

The team have been working closely with the provinces to align on the new Registration Framework, processes and goals. We are also partnering with other ecosystem stakeholders and NGOs who are supporting the registration drive. We are currently live in Gauteng and Free State and will soon rollout into the rest of the provinces.

Through joint effort, active engagement and co-creation across the sector, we have, as a result of the drive, received over 3000 applications and registered 800 new ECDs in the five months since applications opened in June of this year in Gauteng, and we currently have 1479 applications in review.

This impacts 27,114 children and 3,116 staff members. To put this in context, since the ECD function shift from the DSD to the DBE, Gauteng has had a total of 2380 registered centres, and through the campaign we have added 30% more registered ECDs to this number.

Nationally we currently have approximately 18,000 centres registered – as the drive rolls out across the country, our target is to have registered 10 000 more ECDs by the end of 2025. We will continue to work hard and collaborate with all government, private and NGO stakeholders to ensure we “do it right, so our children shine bright!”.

Elijah Mhlanga: Head of Communication - 083 580 8275
Lukhanyo Vangqa: Media Liaison Officer – 066 302 1533
Terence Khala: Media Relations Officer – 081 758 1546

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