The ECD centres have been hit hard during the nationwide lockdown, which was implemented in March. (Getty Images)
- Early childhood development centres say they are ready to reopen after being closed for just over two months.
- One ECD owner says they serve as places of safety for most children.
- A parent says it has become too stressful not being able to send her child to daycare.
Some early childhood development (ECD) centres have told News24 about their eagerness to reopen, but parents are grappling with the idea of sending their young ones back amid the Covid-19 pandemic.
The ECD centres have been hit hard during the nationwide lockdown, which was implemented in March.
One owner told News24 she has found it difficult to continue affording rent.
ECD owner Kim Goldblum now wants the Department of Social Development to allow them to operate again.
She told News24 about how the pandemic has affected her business, saying “so many ECD centres are not going to be here in the next couple of weeks. We just don’t have the financial backing”.
Goldblum said ECDs should reopen because they serve as a places of safety for most children.
She said since the lockdown was implemented some children were “mourning the loss of their friends, they are mourning the loss of a life that no longer seems to exist. Their social and emotional development has been affected”.
“We need to be Covid [-19] compliant – safety is number one priority, but right now our children are not emotionally safe,” she said. “The department should call on people like me, who have been in education for decades, and ask us if we think we are ready for children.”Goldblum has been a teacher for 38 years and her centre has been in existence for 18 years.She is, however, worried that not all parents will be sending their children back to school.She said some parents had already requested a place for their children only later in the year.
Fatima Mayet, who owns a preschool, told News24 that not operating has been “bad”, adding that she had already lost three students since the lockdown was implemented.
Mayet says she is in support of ECDs reopening and that “we are going to take precautions. I am hoping I can get the kids back in some way. I am not being selfish to say that I need to start earning a decent salary, but I think also for the kids they need to get back”.
Directives
Mayet said she had already put measures in place for when parents send their children back.
“I think it is also a little bit irresponsible to get all the kids back and not also be sure about the situation we are facing because it is all new to us,” she said.
“I have about 20 kids that I have in the school and then I thought if I do 10 one day and 10 on the other day. We are not going to be irresponsible about getting the kids back, I mean it is going to be to our own detriment.”
Mayet said centres needed to be given proper directives on how to start operating.
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News24 also spoke to parents and asked how they would feel about sending their little ones back to daycare.
One parent, Sethabile Hlanti, told News24 that her son had been in daycare since he was four months old.
“In all honesty, I would love to send him to school. I’ve been in contact with his school and the measures that will be put in place if the children return to school. I feel better about him being at school, where there will be protocols and consistency when it comes to prevention measures,” she said.
“I do what I have to do at home, but he is a child who has to be able to play and learn, and that’s not something I can do for him while trying to work a full day from home.”
She added:
It’s become extremely stressful for both of us. School gives him a sense of independence that’s been regressing since he’s been at home with me.
She said the risk of contracting the virus was everywhere, adding that her boy’s father had been working since lockdown started, and his older sister went back to school.
“I go grocery shopping at least once a week. I trust the school he goes to; these are the same people who have taken care of him since infancy and I know they wouldn’t risk our children’s lives for money.”
Another parent, Zennia Khanyile, a mother to a four-year-old boy, told News24 that sending her son back would make life easier, but children tend to be forgetful.
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“Kids play, and they are forgetful. I gave my son and his cousin masks the other day when we went to McDonalds.
“By the time we drove back home, they had already swopped masks and one was wearing it on his head like a hat. I guess it’s the fact that kids are kids and they touch everything,” Khanyile said.
The Department of Social Development said in a statement that ECD sectors remain closed under Level 3 regulations, but it has set up eight workstreams that would conduct sector-wide risk assessment and state of readiness.
The workstreams would then make recommendations on hygiene measures and protocols to contain the spread of Covid-19.
The measures may include limiting the number of children a centre can take care of, and also ensuring proper cleaning and disinfecting of the centre, routine screenings and rearranging spaces to encourage social distancing, the department said.
