SITE VISIT - Consultative Group on Early Childhood Care and ...

TOTAL 5 392 813 572 478 10.00 10 786
Teacher training and qualifications
In 1990/91 only four out of 100 teacher training colleges offered pre-primary training courses. In
addition, four universities and three colleges in Natal offered tertiary pre-primary training. Eleven
technical colleges (with entrance qualifications less than Standard 10) also offered pre-primary
courses. Increasingly, the nonformal sector is taking responsibility for training those working in
ECD. In 1993, of 9,224 people who received ECD training, 81% were trained in the nonformal
sector.
Despite significant increases in training capacity in the past few years - the Orange Free State, for
example, has doubled its training capacity since 1991 - many of the personnel providing
education and care to young children are untrained (an estimated 12,000, or 71% of the teaching
force, in 1991). Areas where access to resources and training are desperately needed include the
Karoo, the Northern Cape, the Transkei and rural areas of the Transvaal and Orange Free State.
As South Africa does not have the resources to provide tertiary-level training to all teachers of
pre-primary children, there is a need to offer both formal and nonformal training in an integrated
and co-ordinated accreditation system.
Media could help fill the gap. According to the Human Sciences Research Council (HSRC),
black households are tuned into radio for an average of nine hours per day; the television is on
for five hours per day. But according to the HSRC report, the overall use of the two media does
not involve children in any significant way.
The ability to use the media
The use of media such as radio for early child development is dependent on several factors.
Electricity
% Electrified homes by race group
Blacks Coloreds Indians Whites
Eastern Cape 19.6 78.8 - 100
Northern Cape 66.8 67.9 - 98.8
Western Cape 49.2 91.3 - 99.7
Orange Free State 48.7 - - 99.7
KwaZulu/Natal 36.4 100 99 100
Gauteng 81 100 100 99.9
Northern Transvaal 20.5 - - 100
Eastern Transvaal 33.8 - - 100
North West 28.1 - - 100
Black schools 1994
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