The purpose of this qualification is to prepare a learner to facilitate learning as an Early Childhood Development Practitioner.  An Early Childhood Development Practitioner plans and prepares early childhood activities, facilitates, and mediates learning, observes, and assesses the progress of children, and reflects on learning in an inclusive, play-based environment to support holistic development of children (from conception – school going) in different centre-based or non-centre based settings.

The Occupational Certificate: Early Childhood Development has been designed to meet the needs and interests of the early childhood development sector in a variety of settings and contexts with an inclusive focus on education, health, and safety issues, amongst others. There is a vast need for early childhood development services, and it is critical that the field must be served by competent practitioners.

This qualification will provide a means to gain entry at an entry level, increasing 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.

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 childcare 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.