EARLY CHILDHOOD DEVELOPMENT SELECT COMMITTEE ON FINANCE 29 AUGUST 2008

1. EARLY CHILDHOOD DEVELOPMENTSELECT COMMITTEE ON FINANCE29 AUGUST 2008

2. THE ROLE OF GOVERNMENT • Ensure the proper development of children: physically, emotionally, socially, cognitively, morally and spiritually. • Guided by the following principles :Protection, development. Nondiscrimination and participation and the best interest of the child • Development and implementation of policy, legislation, norms and standards. • Provision of programmes • Monitoring and evaluation • Budget allocation • Infrastructure • Needs assessment • Partnerships • Coordination of services (National Integrated Plan for ECD).

3. PACKAGE OF SERVICES • Integrated management of childhood diseases • Immunisation • Nutrition • Referral services for health, social services and grants • Early learning stimulation • Psychosocial programmes

4. THE ROLE OF DEPARTMENT OF SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT • Registration and review of ECD sites (mainly 0-4 age group and after school care) • Provision of grants/subsidies to disadvantaged children in places of care (ECD sites) and other grants such as the Child Support Grant (CSG), foster care and care dependency grant • Protection of vulnerable children • Development of the capacity of parents / primary caregivers through parenting programmes & psycho-social programmes especially to OVCs and abused children • Family preservation programmes • Developmental Quality Assurance through norms & standards • legislation • Provision of guidelines • Norms and standards • Regulations

5. ECD AS PART OF THE EXPANDED PUBLIC WORKS PROGRAMME • Aims to train ECD practitioners to improve the quality of ECD services to children • Department of Education takes responsibility for training Grade R teachers & practitioners at registered ECD sites • Department of Social Development committed to increase registration of ECD sites and accessibility of subsidies.

6. NUMBER OF REGISTERED SITES

8. NUMBER OF CHILDREN INECD CENTRES & SUBSIDIES AMOUNT Target for amount of subsidy per day per child 2007/8: R9.00 Actual amounts paid: KZN: R11 Gauteng: R9.00 NW: R9.00 Mpu: R11.00 FS: R5.20 WC: R7.50 NC: R9.00 EC: R9.00 Lim: R7.50

9. CURRENT NUMBER OF SUBSIDIZED CHILDREN: MID JUNE 2008 Current number:Number of new children to be subsidised in 2008/9 KZN: 72 000 11 000 Subsidy: R12.00 NW: 20 100 6 000 Subsidy: R 9.00 FS: 32 558 4 000 Subsidy: R 9.00 NC: 25 350 3 250 Subsidy: R10.00 Lim: 42 495 13 905 Subsidy: R 9.00 Gau: 36 130 10 000 Subsidy: R11.00 Mpu: 26 774 10 000 Subsidy: R11.00 WC: 52 793 5 000 Subsidy: R 9.00 EC: 76 800 6 000 Subsidy: R12.00 Total: 385 00055 155 TOTAL CHILDREN TO RECEIVE SUBSIDY 2008/9: 440 155

10. NUMBER OF ACCREDITED ECD CENTRES • The concept of accredited ECD centres does not exist.

11. WHAT IS THE SUBSIDY BUYING? • 50% Nutritional needs of the children • 30% A contribution to the salaries of the practitioners • 20 % Other expenses, i.e. electricity, equipment.

12. FUNDING FOR THESE CENTRES (CONT….) • Subsidies are paid to nongovernmental organisations (NGOs) caring for children whose parents are meeting the criteria of the mean test (R1 800). • NGOs get paid per claim. Some provinces provide the payment on a monthly basis while some of the NGOs claim for a six month period.

14. WHETHER FUNDING REACHES THE INTENDED BENEFICIARIES? • NGOs submit proposals for funding, which is then assessed by the province. • Hereafter recommendations are made per available funds. Every year provinces set targets to increase the number of children and ECD sites to be funded. • After approval of the application, government and the NGOs sign service level agreements which are evaluated every year. • During the evaluation process the provinces request financial statements or any other financial proof on expenditure. • This enables the provinces to decide to continue with the service level agreement, or to suspend and to terminate.

15. CHALLENGES EXPERIENCED • Registration of ECD, as per Child Care Act 74 of 1983, as mended • There are sites that are not yet registered. The plan is to continue with the registration drive. • Accessing the allocated funds: • ECD sites are expected to claim the funding allocated per child per day. This entails comprehensive administrative work. • This process contribute to under expenditure. • The plan to address this is for provinces to consider to allocate funds three months in advance with strong monitoring measures on the expenditure.

16. CHALLENGES EXPERIENCED (cont….) • Provinces have different payment systems: The plan is to have a uniform payment system. • Absence of a national data base contribute to the difficulty of obtaining reliable information. Audit of ECD sites is currently being planned.

17. PUBLIC EXPENDITURE TRACKING STUDY (PETS) • A PETS is a multi-purpose survey designed to track the flow of resources through the administrative system, on a sample survey basis. • In order to determine how much of the originally allocated resources reach each level. It is a useful tool for locating and quantifying leakage of funds and problems in the deployment of human and in-kind resources. • The PETS will be piloted in NW, WC and Limpopo (DSD & DOE) in collaboration with UNICEF and the National Treasury. • The study will be completed by July 2009. • The study is intended to inform the development of a comprehensive tracking system for ECD nationally.

18. THE END • THANK YOU