The Southern Africa Regional Conference on Early Childhood Development aims to promote building partnerships that are necessary in the scale up of Early Childhood Development (ECD) across the sub-region. The vision is to provide an environment in the Southern Africa Region where children have access to quality and inclusive early childhood development and education services; where all children are supported to attain their full development potential and to contribute to the region's prosperity. The conference informs on ECD policy and programme development, ECD budget priorities, professionalization of the ECD sector and in developing robust ECD programs.
The three day conference with a total number of 280 participants was held from 28th to 30th March 2023 in Lusaka, Zambia and brought together Researchers, Civil Society Organizations (CSOs), Academia, Funders, ECD practitioners, Government Ministries, Agencies and ECD sector partners from over 13 countries (Nigeria, Liberia, South Africa, Ethiopia, Kenya, Ghana, Malawi, Tanzania, Zimbabwe, Namibia, Botswana, Eswatini and Zambia). Through these national and regional ECD networks, strong and complementary avenues to accelerate positive ECD outcomes are being established to facilitate systemic alignment and support country systems, strengthen the political will and increase investment to deliver results for young children.
Speaking at the Conference (on behalf of the President of Zambia), the Minister of Education Dr. Douglas Syakalima said: 'The conference is timely at the point when Zambia is invested in social and economic development. Early Childhood Development (ECD) is one of the strategies for enhancing capital environment and social development. Foundational literacy and numeracy are important building blocks in science and innovation. ECD budgetary allocation in Southern Africa averages 1.1% in national budgets. This limits investments in enhancing access to quality ECD services. 66% of children globally who are at risk of not reaching their full potential are in Southern Africa. Learning poverty is expected to reach over 70% in Southern Africa given the influence of Covid-19 and climate change. This conference provides an opportunity for technocrats to provide solutions to the identified challenges and government is looking for stronger partners that can leverage on the resolve of government to invest in ECD.
To showcase Zambia's commitment to ECE Dr. Syakalima proceeded to mention that 'Out of the 30 496 teachers recruited last year in Zambia, 2 066 were ECD teachers'.
The conference was well attended and provided an opportunity to:
- Showcase innovative programs in the sub-region
- Harness collective experiences to enrich the advocacy agenda and to strengthen policy and programme implementation
- Networking, building partnerships and establish pathways for collaborations
- Disseminate ECD knowledge generated from sub-regional research efforts
VVOB was represented by 8 participants, 6 from Zambia and 2 from South Africa.
In Zambia, VVOB is implementing the IT'S PLAY Project. The Improving Teaching Skills on Playful Learning for Africa's Youngest project supports the implementation of an innovative teacher professional development (TPD) model to build play facilitation skills for ECE. The project is based on four pillars:
- integrating learning through play (LtP) into government ECE policy and instruments
- strengthening the capacity of in-service TPD providers on LtP
- supporting TPD providers to train and coach 1,600 teachers
- building awareness of key stakeholders like school leaders and parents
IT'S PLAY is implemented in Zambia, Rwanda and Uganda, using iterative learning cycles which will enable the contextualization and continuous testing and improvement of this innovative approach to TPD on LtP.
