Cape Town - A plan by the Department of Basic Education to roll out a national curriculum framework for children younger than four years is a step in the right direction, but the importance of play should not be overlooked, experts say.
In her budget speech on Tuesday, Basic Education Minister Angie Motshekga said the national curriculum framework for children under 4 would be rolled out in registered Early Development Centres (ECD) from January.
“All preparations like practitioner training and supply of resources have already started and will be completed this calendar year,”she said.
A legislative review to make schooling compulsory for children aged five to 15, instead of the current 7 to 15, is also on the cards.
Motshekga said the National Development Plan underlined the need for access for all children to at least two years of pre-school education.
Professor Eric Atmore, director of the Centre for Early Childhood Development, said more than half of ECD centres in the country were not registered and many did not have quality learning programmes, if any at all.
He said the teachers were often undertrained.
“The framework should be exactly that – a framework. There needs to be flexibility. It must be driven by play and age-appropriate activities. Without resources to back it up it’s not going to work.”
He said the move was long overdue.
“Education White Paper 5 in 2001 said exactly the same thing. It’s taken 13 years to get to this point.”
Dr Nadeen Moolla, a senior lecturer in the Department of Educational Psychology at the University of the Western Cape, said the department should strive to ensure the curriculum was not so structured that the notion of free play got lost.
“Children learn best through play and it helps them to develop cognitively, emotionally and socially.”
She said the framework was a step in the right direction as guidelines for ECD centres would be helpful, but said the way the framework was implemented would be crucial.
“What concerns me is that it is directed at registered centres only. What happens to those children who are raised in informal settings?”
Basil Manuel, president of the National Professional Teachers’ Organisation of SA (Naptosa), welcomed the commitment to making two years of pre-school education compulsory, but believed ECD teachers had to be professionally qualified.
“Naptosa endorses the sentiment that the initial years of schooling are critical for future learning, hence, ECD needs individuals that are properly qualified and trained. Presently a large percentage of ‘teachers’ employed in the ECD sector are essentially caregivers,” he said.
Cape Argus