News

ECD practitioners – unsung and underpaid

22 November 2010

The quality of early childhood development (ECD) programmes depends heavily on the knowledge and skills of those who work with young children. It follows that ECD practitioners require continual opportunities for high-quality training.

Despite this, little has changed since the government’s nationwide ECD audit in 2000 revealed that the vast majority of practitioners were underqualified (58%) or untrained (23%).

There is international consensus on the need for specialised training for ECD practitioners, but a career path for such practitioners remains elusive in South Africa. ECD continues to be facilitated largely by black women who are not professionally recognised, whose work is undervalued and who are not remunerated fairly and equitably in comparison with mainstream educators. ECD practitioners are among the most vulnerable workers in the economy and the ECD sector itself remains marginalised and fragmented.

Bearing in mind also that ECD practitioners generally earn between R500 and R2 500 a month and that some take home only whatever parent committees manage to pay them, universities are prohibitively expensive for them, costing about R100 000 for four years of tuition alone, excluding textbooks. Some practitioners need six to 10 years part-time training to upgrade their qualifications.

The reality is that NGOs remain the largest provider of education and training in the ECD sector and that qualifications that were introduced to provide access and redress for previously disadvantaged ECD practitioners still fail to do so.

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