Early Childhood Development Centre Managers’ Provision of Comprehensive Quality Programmes: Policy Implementation

The establishment of the National Integrated Early Childhood Development Policy (NIECDP) in 2015 aimed at defining a national comprehensive early childhood development (ECD) programme and support with identified essential components inclusive of national, provincial, and local spheres of government. This study’s purpose is to explore ECD centre managers’ understandings of how provision for comprehensive quality early childhood development programmes can be made in their centres with specific reference to the aims of the NIECDP. Using Wenger’s Communities of Practice theory, this study focuses on ECD centre managers’ experiences of providing integrated programmes that are aligned with the policy’s expectations. The study was conducted in 10 community ECD centres located in rural and peri-urban contexts in Eastern Cape and KwaZulu-Natal provinces. Five ECD centre managers from each province were purposefully sampled for the study to interpret their understandings of provisioning of comprehensive quality programmes in their ECD centres. An interpretive qualitative case study methodological design was adopted. Semi-structured interviews and structured observations were used to generate credible and trustworthy data that were beyond generalisation. Findings revealed that some ECD centre managers lacked knowledge of the NIECDP. As a result, no provisioning of comprehensive quality ECD programmes that were overarched by multi-sectoral bodies as per the framework were implemented. ECD centre managers from underprivileged rural and peri-urban contexts worked in silos, as it was evidently clear that there was no collaboration with other provincial departments in ensuring the provision of a comprehensive quality ECD programme.