Occupational Certificate – ECD Practitioner LEVEL 4: Qualification Overview

Occupational Code: 234201
NQF Level: 4
Credits: 131

This Qualification will provide a means to give recognition to practitioners at an entry level, thus making it possible for practitioners to increase their employment prospects within the Department of Basic Education. The Department of Social Development, through the registration of early childhood development centres and/or sites, may also provide business opportunities to successful practitioners who may wish to establish early childhood centres and/or sites. It will also provide access to a recognised career path and at the same time provide the field with suitably qualified professional practitioners.

The people functioning within this sector are required to provide high-quality child care and effectively implement early childhood education programmes. This Qualification was developed with the full participation of major employers such as government, Department of Basic Education, Department of Higher Education, Adult Basic Education and Training, Early Childhood Development Chamber of the ETDPSETA, Higher Education Institutions, Department of Social Development, Skills Development Providers (public and private), and Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs).

The Qualification will provide opportunities to people who wish to enter and/or continue learning in the early childhood development field, which include the employed, under-employed but not qualified, and school 234201000 – Occupational Certificate: Early Childhood Development Practitioner (Early Childhood Development Practitioner) Page 3 of 10 leavers. Every child has the right to high-quality, holistic education and care which forms the critical foundation for further development and learning from childhood into adulthood.
This necessitates the universal availability of high-quality early childhood development and education as a vital strategy to yield personal and long-term benefits to individual children, their families and the society at large.

Early childhood development is an essential component of economic development within the framework of child care services. Changing social and economic needs require parents to enter the labour market. Therefore quality early childhood development service provision is required to meet growing demands in the country, both in urban and rural settings.