Compliance to national norms and standards among early childhood development centres in Mankweng Area, Limpopo

Abstract

Background: The National Norms and Standards are aimed at providing regulatory minimum norms and standards to guide early childhood development centres in the provision of a range of services. It is therefore important for early childhood development centres to comply to regulations and failing that the health and safety of children is compromised. It has been observed by the researcher that compliance among early childhood development early childhood development in the Mankweng area is a challenge, and therefore an investigation on the general compliance was necessary. Objectives: The objectives of the study were to explore and describe compliance to National Norms and Standards among early childhood development centres’ in Mankweng area, Limpopo Province. Methods: The study used a qualitative approach and applied a phenomenological research design. Both observation and semi-structured interviews methods of data collection were used respectively. Purposive and Convenience sampling methods were used to select the study participants and all of them were workers employed in the selected early childhood development centres in Mankweng. Participants included both male and female workers, and the sample size of 16 was determined by data saturation. Data was analysed using the Teschs’ eight steps of data analysis. Results: It was established that there are existing personal hygiene and environmental practices challenges at different early childhood development centres. The study further discovered that there was inadequate provision of classrooms and deprivation of child developmental activities as well as challenges regarding the quality of classrooms and settings. Conclusion: The findings revealed that the early childhood development centres did not meet the physical requirements suggested in the norms and standards. These include the visible and tangible aspects toys for both indoor and outdoor use; the human resources capacity and the investments in capacity development of staff; the type of infrastructure; and the activity-based learning and stimulation for children. Furthermore, crèches play a very important role in child care and protection consequently regulatory provisions should be fully enforced including compliance amongst these centres in Mankweng and in South Africa respectively.