A physical audit of pre-schooling facilities and practices on Bafokeng Lefatshe, which may reveal the range of child-mining practices across the RBN, and to suggest different routes of intervention in our schooling crisis. The project will be completed by end September 2015.

Inscope

To create a checklist of “basic preconditions” for pre-school facilities, including

• Whether the land is legally occupied
• Whether they pay for facilities – land rental, water payment, etc
• Whether goods or services are extended by the RBI (books, materials, feeding scheme)
• Whether basic safety and hazard mitigation is in place
• Whether the facilities are clean
• Whether there is a curriculum of sorts being followed
• Whether there are fixed “starting” and “ending” times
• The presence of clean sanitation facilities
• The teacher-to-child ratio
• Whether it is run commercially or not, and how finances are administered
• Whether any other records are kept
• Teachers’ levels of education
• Whether children are drugged or forced to sleep
• Whether children are physically punished

To appoint a fieldwork management team.

To train fieldworkers in enumeration techniques, administering the questionnaire, and fieldwork logistics.

To sensitise RBN-leaders, including RBI, Supreme Council and Security Services to the project, and purpose and the logistics

To visit all facilities where 0-6 year-olds are looked after outside of their own households, including nurseries, preschools, playgroups, kindergartens, crèches and day-care centres, regardless of size, level of formality and ownership type.

To report on the findings

Outcomes

The outcome would be a report that expounds on the landscape of facilities and techniques used to look after and develop 0-6 year-olds in the RBN. This report would categorise facilities into appropriate subsets, and make recommendations for their development, formalisation, or even removal.

Out-of-scope

Testing of teachers

Training of teachers

Interviewing of parents