The Children’s Amendment Bill

This page is dedicated to bringing you all the latest updates on the Children’s Amendment Bill.

The government carried out various consultations on the draft Children’s Amendment Bill in 2018. The Bill was tabled in Parliament on 22nd February 2019 and it is likely that its parliamentary passage will start after the election.

SmartStart made three submissions to the draft Bill that was gazetted for public comment in October 2018. The first was a joint position paper signed by 42 South African organisations working in the ECD sector. The second submission responds to the government’s proposed amendments that relate to ECD. The third submission sets out a proposed new approach to ECD in the Act, whereby regulation of all types of ECD programmes is unified under one chapter.