Crèches Battle Complicated Registration Process

Registration is essential for Early Childhood Development centres to receive state subsidies. But crèche owners complain that the process is too complicated.

More than half of Cape Town’s 2,620 Early Childhood Development Centres (ECD) are unregistered. Without registration, the crèches do not qualify for state subsidies, currently at R24 per child per day.

At a recent ECD indaba at the Cape Town Civic Centre, Deputy Mayor Eddie Andrews said 63,000 children are being cared for in unregistered and unregulated facilities.

But crèche owners at the indaba said the system’s lack of clarity and its inconsistencies have made it difficult for centres to access the support they need.

Yusrah Ehrenreich from the Centre for Early Childhood Development told GroundUp that without the government subsidies, crèche owners are forced into personal debt, staff often go unpaid, and children go unfed.

The Real Reform for ECD represents over 1,000 ECD practitioners across five provinces. Nobukhosi Zulu-Taruza, who serves as the campaign’s local subcommittee chair and is also a law and policy specialist at Ilifa Labantwana, an early childhood development programme founded in 2007, says the current registration system is slow, confusing and difficult to navigate.

Basic Education Minister Siviwe Gwarube reassured crèche owners at the indaba that her department was committed to simplifying the registration process and addressing the operational challenges faced by ECD centres.

There was also confusion around the City’s development charges. Ayanda Mpoke, who operates a registered crèche in Khayelistha, says that after submitting the centre’s building plans, the City issued a development charge of R435,250. “I will never be able to afford it,” Mpokela said.

Responding to GroundUp, Andrews said development charges only apply to crèches when a centre has more than 34 children. Then the applicant is liable for the impact the centre will have on local infrastructure, such as water, sewage, electricity and roads.

“The Development Charge is calculated by determining what it will cost the City to provide the additional services (water, sewage etc) to meet the demand that the new land use will have on the bulk services,” Andrews said.

The City provides rebates to indigent applicants but only if they apply and demonstrate their indigent status.

Zulu-Taruza says the charges have a disproportionate effect on small crèches in poor areas. She said many of these centres operate in communities built on dolomitic land under past planning policies that failed to account for long-term infrastructure needs.

“Now, the very same communities are being penalised for conditions they had no control over,” said Zulu-Taruza.

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