Blog 10: South Africa: Dlamini rallies community support for ECD

Blog 10: South Africa: Dlamini rallies community support for ECD

The South African Social Development Minister is trying to rally support from communities to push for rights of all children to accessible quality early education. Bathabile Dlamini spoke at the Early Childhood Development conference and urged the country to make early education a top priority in a timely manner. She added that other social issues such as unemployment were given more importance and that education was toward the bottom of the list. She suggested that perhaps the best way to bring education to the forefront was to ‘piggy-back’ on pre-existing programs that seek to improve rural and urban conditions. The South African Basic Education Deputy Minister mentioned the fact that the EDC centers are receiving better access to materials including 54 million new workbooks. Also, the government has 20,000 newly trained ECD instructors. The South African Correctional Services Minister added to the support of the ECD program when he spoke of how early education gives children the right tools to become better socialized and lower the large amounts of juvenile delinquents. Ms. Mapisa-Nakula suggested that training the ECD instructors and at-risk parents to incorporate nurturing and discipline into their teaching would show important improvements in the communities. And finally, an ECD teacher from Port Elizabeth added that as bad as things looked right now, she felt there was promise for the future and that children were the reason for it.

This article was an example of a global social problem on the road to recovery. South Africa has only had its independence since 1994 and with all of its continuing problems it appears that some people there have the right idea. To put early education at the top of a countries priorities is a hugely important step which takes much insight. It is ironic to me that such a new nation can realize the importance of early education when North Carolina and much of the United States have been extremely slow in recognizing this. Studies have shown that when children have an early start to their education, the long term positive results are undeniable. I have very high hopes that North Carolina will agree with Governor Purdue and vote to add funds to the early education program. I do believe that children everywhere are our future and to ignore that would only hurt us all.

http://7thspace.com/headlines/409146/south_africa_dlamini_rallies_community_support_for_ecd.htm