One Blueprint. Many ways forward.

The word inclusion has come to mean different things to different people. In education, it is often associated first with disability, but it is much broader than that. It is about any child who experiences a barrier to learning.

There are many systemic and bureaucratic blockages to supporting ELPs. And some are intractable. The Blueprint calls for ‘distributing the capability to solve’. We ran a campaign to mobilise 1200 Environmental Health Practitioners in 54 districts and municipalities to overcome the red tape for ECD registration with social workers. In a short time I witnessed first-hand what it means to distribute the capability to solve.

Funding orchestration helps every source of money for early learning (public, philanthropic, corporate and investment) reach where it will do the most, and unlocks the new money still needed. It is facilitative leadership, not command and control: nobody is told what to fund. Instead, it builds a shared picture of the gaps, helps different funds work as one system, matches the right capital to the right need, and grows a connected community of funders.

There are many services and support initiatives for ELPs. But they’re siloed, and often undiscoverable to those who need it most. The work of creating a digital backbone is to network all South Africa’s services for ELPs, make it discoverable trusted and valuable in local contexts and free of friction that fragmented services offer.

We have been listening to people closest to the child in early learning to discover the shared truths and stories they tell about the child. We’re learning that the narrative of early learning already exists, but it lacks an anchor that centres the child as the most important person in our communities

The Blueprint proposes leveraging community assets for the child. And in a few months, we’ve mobilised non-ECD partners to re-think how we draw on local assets to build new pathways to early learning. I thought I understood ECD but in the last few months I’ve been on a steep learning curve from community level organisations who are keen to prototype the Bana Pele Community Hubs.