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GroundUp reports that the Presidential Employment Stimulus fund for Early Childhood Development (ECD) has been marred by dysfunction.
After the application deadline had to be extended because the process was so onerous, thousands of ECD centres that applied to the relief fund are still waiting for a response from the Department of Social Development (DSD), for a payout or simply for verification of their applications. “It’s a disaster. The system is faulty, and it was never user-friendly in the first place, especially for the poorest ECD centres. … Centres have closed down, people have lost their jobs but the national DSD is not saying a word,” said Yusrah Ehrenreich of the Centre for Early Childhood Development. She said her organisation had sent numerous emails and made numerous calls to the DSD, but there has been no response. Jennifer McQuillan, of ECD Owners of SA, said the sector had been one of the hardest hit by the pandemic and continued to be undervalued and ignored. “It’s a great shame that we need to, after all this time, plead with the DSD to verify ECD centres, so that they can receive their promised stimulus relief funding. This funding could and often does mean the difference to an impoverished centre being able to operate or permanently close,” McQuillan lamented. Western Cape MEC for Social Development Sharna Fernandez noted: “The system has proven to be dysfunctional.”
- Read the full original of the report in the above regard by Mary-Anne Gontsana at GroundUp
Get other news reports at the SA Labour News home page