Teacher Education for Early Childhood Care and Education Project (TEECCEP) Strengthening university capacity to support Early Childhood Development in SA.
South Africa will not address the issue of education inequality if it does not first address the earliest levels of learning
The commitment of governments across the world to invest in Early Childhood Development (ECD) is generally expressed in terms of expanding and improving comprehensive ECD, especially for the most vulnerable and disadvantaged children.
ECD is considered a fundamental human right in the South African National Development Plan 2030: Our future, make it work (NDP).
The government’s NDP places ECD at the centre of national interventions to eradicate poverty in South Africa.
The NDP proposes investing in “training early childhood development practitioners, upgrading their qualifications and developing clear career paths” as a measure to “improve the quality of education and long-term prospect of future generations”.
The 2015 National Integrated Early Childhood Development policy (NIECD), sets out how the goals of the NDP are to be achieved.
The NIECD recognises that “professionalization; continuing professional development and career paths; post-provisioning; adequate conditions of service; and a conducive working environment are critical elements of an effective national integrated early childhood development human resources strategy”.
It is therefore concerning that a recent situational analysis of ECD practitioners shows that “roughly 70% of practitioners nationally do not have any specialised training in working with children”.
Furthermore, the low qualifications level of the majority of ECD educators adds to the perception that the work of caring for and educating young children has little employment value and status.
The sector has been plagued by a lack of defined career pathways and opportunities for ECD practitioners. This has led to a paucity of wellqualified ECD practitioners and consequently many ECD programmes are of poor standard.
While qualifications may not be the only intervention needed to improve the quality of ECD programme delivery, there is sufficient evidence to suggest that it is an important condition for meeting the educational needs of children in early childhood.
It is against this background of the increasing focus on well-educated, well-trained professionals as a key factor in providing high-quality ECD that the Teacher Education for Early Childhood Care and Education Project (TEECCEP) was conceptualised by the Department of Higher Education and Training (DHET).
The TEECCEP is supported by the European Union (EU) and implemented by the Department with the goal of developing a national policy on minimum requirements for programmes leading to higher education qualifications for educators working in Early Childhood Care and Education (ECCE) contexts, and developing capacity at universities to offer these programmes on a scale that meets the needs of the sector.
Policy development
South Africa needs a committed cadre of appropriately qualified and passionate teachers in the sector, and to date, ECD practitioners have not had access to qualification programmes offered by the Higher Education sector, nor have they had clear qualification paths mapped against the NQF, and aligned to defined career paths.
This situation has been remedied by the development and publication of the Policy on Minimum Requirements for Programmes Leading to Qualifications in Higher Education for Early Childhood Educators, (MRQECDE) in the Government Gazette No. 40750, 31 March 2017.
The MRQECDE policy is a first step towards contributing to the professionalization of the ECD educator workforce by developing enhanced capacity for the education and training of ECD (birth-4) educators.
Programme development
The TECCEP entered into a collaborative partnership with the Project for Inclusive Early Childhood Care and Education (PIECCE) for the development of a common Programme Framework for the Bachelor of Education in Early Childhood Care and Education (B Ed ECCE) at NQF level 7 and the Diploma in Early Childhood Care and Education (Dip ECCE) at NQF level 6, supported by exemplar materials.
The collaboration was led by UNISA, SAIDE, BRIDGE and Rhodes Centre for Social Development with TREE, Ntataise and False Bay College as consulting partners, and accommodated nine additional universities that were supported by the TEECCEP.
The cross-pollination of ideas from different ECD stakeholders has been one of the particular strengths of the collaborative nature of the TEECCEP.
The Programme Framework describes the principles, content and approaches which should inform programmes offered by Higher Education Institutions (HEIS) for the B Ed ECCE and the Dip ECCE.
The collaborative approach to designing the Programme Framework aimed at ensuring that it was sensitive to all ECCE student teacher contexts and those of their future learners.
It also ensured that current debates and perspectives on ECCE were taken into account.
The table below provides an overview of the universities that are developing B Ed ECCE and Dip ECCE programmes and the anticipated implementation dates.
Enhanced capacity at universities for ECCE
Seed funding was allocated for the appointment of 14 new academics across nine institutions, with the agreement that the universities undertake to employ the academics at the end of the project.
The newly appointed academics also received TEECCEP bursary funding for MED and PHD studies in ECCE and participated in the development of the programmes at their institutions.
As part of the ECCE staff at their institutions, they will be able to initiate and support the programme implementation.
Development of quality materials and resources for the teaching of ECCE
In support of the Programme Framework, the PIECCE consortium designed illustrative packs as teacher educator support materials.
The aim of these is to guide curriculum developers in translating the Framework into implementable programmes.
The materials are designed for interactive learning, for use by teacher educators and ECCE student teachers.
The packs draw on the PIECCE Programme Framework themes and principles, including Critical Reflection, Inclusivity, and Quality.
TEECCEP Research
Research on pedagogy, policy analysis, Work Integrated Learning (WIL) and academic support for students, among others, have been incorporated into the development of the Programme Framework for the B Ed ECCE and the Dip ECCE.
The development of the Framework was furthermore informed by the conceptualization of Knowledge and Practice Standards for ECCE.
The Transformative Pedagogy Project (TPEC) and the Project for Early Childhood Policy Analysis (PECPA) enabled the funding of postgraduate studies for a further 25 students.
These projects, as well as the support for the South African Journal for Childhood Education (SAJCE), are reported on in further articles in this supplement.
Impact of the TEECCEP
The goal of professionalization will be furthered through the building of capacity at universities to offer these programmes on a scale that meets the needs of the sector.
In addition, the research that is undertaken will advance the knowledge base and educational research in ECD.
The TEECCEP research projects have provided an opportunity to existing and emerging researchers to contribute to the academic body of knowledge in ECCE in the South African context and to advance the discourse on professionalization of ECCE practitioners.
Critical issues of post-provisioning, adequate conditions of service and a conducive working environment, however, require urgent attention in order to realise the NIECD vision of an effective national integrated ECD human resources strategy.
As a country, we will not address issues of education inequality and quality if we do not first address these at the earliest levels of learning.
This is the belief that underpins the DHET’S work in this area, and to this end the TEECEP has set in motion a process that could potentially make a significant contribution to quality outcomes for children from birth to four.
MRQECDE policy|