The Department of Basic Education is working on its new Early Childhood Development (ECD) system and plans to have a detailed cost plan for the project by March 2020.<\/p>\n
This is according to basic education minister Angie Motshekga who was replying during a recent parliamentary Q&A session.<\/p>\n
First announced during by president Cyril Ramaphosa during his 2019 state of the nation address, the ECD system aims to enrol all South African children in two years of compulsory schooling before starting Grade 1<\/strong>.<\/p>\n The government hopes that the system will improve the foundational skills of literacy and numeracy\u00a0 – two areas where South Africa has repeatedly scored poorly compared to the rest of the world.<\/p>\n “The Department of Basic Education (DBE) has committed to developing a comprehensive plan to ensure a phased-in and systematic relocation of the responsibility and leadership for ECD,” Motshekga said.<\/p>\n “This comprehensive plan will include the provision of two years of compulsory ECD prior to Grade 1, as well as the provision of Early Childhood Development (ECD) for 0-4-year-olds.”<\/p>\n Progressed learners\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n In a separate reply, Motshekga also confirmed that her department is moving ahead with its plan to stop South African students from repeating lower grades multiple times.<\/p>\n The policy of \u2018automatic progression<\/strong>\u2019 proposes that a learner may only repeat a grade once in the Foundation Phase (Grade R \u2013 Grade 3) to prevent them from being retained in this phase for longer than four years.<\/p>\n Motshekga said that her department is putting plans in place to make the necessary policy amendments to allow for these changes and that the amendments will ultimately be a boon to both students and the school system.<\/p>\n “Support for automatic progression within the South African context is being considered as a possible policy position, given that repetition is regarded as being associated with learner dropout and poor academic performance.<\/p>\n \u201cIndeed, many scholars hold the view that the negative effects of repetition far outweigh automatic promotion.<\/p>\n \u201cWithin this debate, we must also consider issues of efficiency and human rights aspects of over-sized classes, as well as the unaffordability of bringing the learner\/educator ratio down substantially via hiring of additional teachers,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
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