Digitising early childhood development
Challenge
All across South Africa, Early Childhood Development (ECD) centres play pivotal roles in the effort to provide South Africa’s youngest and most vulnerable citizens access to an enjoyable, quality early learning programme in as safe and secure environment as possible. To help these ECD services recover from the loss of income brought on by COVID-19, relief funding was made available through the Presidential Employment Stimulus Package. The challenge lay in assisting these ECD centres to be able to apply for this funding in a safe and efficient manner.
Response
GovChat, in partnership with the South African Department of Social Development, the South African Social Security Agency (SASSA), as well as UNICEF, the Nelson Mandela Foundation and the DG Murray Trust, worked in collaboration to develop a framework that allowed ECD centres to apply for financial grants via the Early Childhood Development Presidential Stimulus Relief Fund. This functionality was then rapidly built into GovChat’s Personalised Web Application, allowing ECD centres throughout the country to easily and safely apply digitally for a grant.
Results
The results included the successful registration of 124,516 ECD practitioners. It also provided insight for enhanced future ECD planning – through information such as provincial and municipality location, proximity to supplementary services, demographics of practitioners and children represented, as well as capacity and funding statistics.