People of the Eastern Cape and South Africa
Leadership of both departments present
Members of the Media

All esteemed guests 

Good morning,

Today, myself in my official capacity as the MEC for the ECDoE and the MEC for Department of Social Development (DSD), we have convened this briefing to give an update to the people of the province and the country who have bestowed to us a responsibility to be in charge of the transition wherein the Early Childhood Development function is being moved from DSD to Education countrywide following a pronouncement by President Cyril Ramaphosa during his 2019 State of the Nation Address (SONA).

Primarily, this is meant to guarantee synergy in the quality of education offered to learners at a tender age while properly aligning Early Childhood Development to achieve universal quality access to ECD services for every child.

This Function Shift will see about 2556 ECD Centres in the Eastern Cape being migrated from the Department of Social Development to the Department of Education as part of the function shift process.

Ladies and gentlemen, the main issues to be addressed by the function shift are to: -

• Ensure adequate preparedness for every child that arrives at primary school.
• Eliminate poor scoring, repeating grades, drop out that emanates from low levels of school readiness.
• Increase Education outcomes, like improved attention and learning outcomes and
• Enhance and align ECD learning to achieve universal quality access to ECD services for every child.

Both the President and Premier of the Eastern Cape Province have signed the required proclamations. The Provincial Departments of Social Development and Education have signed a Memorandum of Agreement (MOA) as a means of supporting the process of function shift.

Members of the media and people of the Eastern Cape, subsequent to a series of engagements, inter-departmental Provincial Project Management Teams were established to ensure the smooth transition, and these include:

• Legal and contracts
• Human resources
• Finance and budgets
• Infrastructure
• Data, information, monitoring and evaluation
• Communication and stakeholder engagement
• ECD Implementation programmes

The teams are consistently consolidating and providing reports to the provincial cabinet and portfolio committees involved as part of monitoring the transition.

Human Resources 

There has been a series of consultations of all staff affected by the shift and such is guided by the National Macro Organisation of Government (NMOG) Framework Agreement, the PSCBC Resolution 1 of 2019 and the Public Service Guide on Transformation and Restructuring: Human Resources. The PMOG at the Provincial level has already been signed by both MEC’s.

Organisational Configuration

Members of the media, allow me to indicate that the organizational development units from both departments supported by Office of the Premier in the Province were instructed to perform an Organizational Development (OD) exercise that will determine functions, personnel with related posts as well as supporting resources to be transferred from DSD to DoE.

The exercise amongst others was designed to explore the configuration and provisioning from Service Centre, District Office and Head Office without disadvantaging either of the two Departments in the process. Also, in identifying the functions, the team conducted a work-study analysis that resulted in redesigning the Organizational Structures reflecting proper functions and relevant post allocations.

 Current Functional Scope

The DoE has a configuration of ECD function focusing on curriculum support, including ECD curriculum related policy development with its monitoring thereof, subject advisory services and other curriculum related services as prescribed by the National Department of Basic Education.

The ECD institutional support services is currently provided by DSD and it is the primary function that must be transferred to DoE.

This function includes the social welfare services specifically focusing on ECD. It is important to note that the institutional support by DSD is not solely focusing on ECD alone as this Department is spreading its resources by supporting ECD Centres in combination with other Non-Profit Organizations (NPO’s and NGO’s).

The same resources are expected to execute NPO Registration and Partial Care Services.

Budget and Resource Allocation  

According to Section 33 of the Public Finance Management Act (1 of 1999) where functions are transferred between departments funds and or resources must follow. 

ECD Programme Implementation 

To support the transition of the function, the ECD Programme Implementation Task Team developed a management plan. The plan details all relevant activities that must be implemented during 2021/2022 financial year. 

Communication and Stakeholdere Mobilisation   

Ladies and gentlemen, a Communication Strategy was developed which led to a series of engagements with various organizations and parties that have an interest on Early Childhood Development function.

Engagements with labour organizations takes place at the level of PSCBC Chamber of the Province. The PSCBC Chamber engagements will be on-going until the function shift exercise reaches its logical conclusion.

However, broader engagements in the sector have been elevated to be convened through an ECD Function Shift Summit that is planned for today, 11 November 2021. 

The purpose of the summit is for the EC Department of Education (ECDoE) and EC Department of Social Development (ECDSD) to present progress relating to the Early Childhood Development (ECD) migration from ECDSD to ECDoE and to enter into a dialogue with stakeholders to discuss the implications of the migration as well as to give inputs in the process.

These are all endeavors to ensure that all stakeholders are given an opportunity to engage with the provincial implementation plan.

Stakeholders invited include Government Departments, Labour Organizations, NPOs/ NGOs, Disability sector, Business, employees from both departments, etc.

Ladies and gentlemen, this project like any interdepartmental projects is not running without its own share of challenges. It was a challenge identifying the posts, the personnel and budget that will be migrating with the function from DSD to DoE. However, constant engagements with various role players provided the leverage that is needed for the success of the function shift. 

I thank you!!!!