Johannesburg - The Gauteng Department of Education (GDE) is tackling teacher shortages at Early Childhood Development Centres with its ECD teacher recruitment initiative.
The Gauteng City Region Academy (GCRA) has invited unemployed South Africans to apply for ECD teacher programmes.
The GCRA, Health and Welfare Sector Education and Training Authority (HWSETA) are looking for 2,800 young candidates interested in becoming ECD teachers.
The ECD Educators Programme is a three-year programme where young people receive training and are later placed in ECD centres in the NGO sector.
The programme will offer candidates opportunities like:
- Access to funding and financial support throughout the programme.
- Employment opportunities with reputable DSD/GDE funded NGOs/ECD centres.
- Exposure to various work readiness initiatives to enhance professional skills.
The GCRA further urged applicants to adhere to the following criteria:
- Be Gauteng residents.
- Have matriculated from a Gauteng school.
- Be passionate about pursuing a career in ECD education.
- You should be younger than 33 and may not turn 36 during the programme.
Delivering his first 2023–2024 budget speech at the Gauteng Provincial Legislature, the GDE MEC, Matome Chilaone, said they were committed to improving ECD standards as more children were accessing the building blocks of learning.
Chilaone mentioned they would expand access to ECD sites across poor and marginalised communities, including residential hostels.
He allocated R246 million to the ECD Grant to address the issues.
“The Department is committed to rolling out ECDs of the future across the 5 corridors. The ECD of the future centres will have classrooms with indoor splash pools, ICT centres, a water recycling area, and mini sports areas. The budget allocation for this ECD of the future centre is R29 million," he said.