The South African Department of Education has just held a major conference on early childhood development in Johannesburg, called 'Unlocking the Future'. The conference was held to review progress in the ten years since the end of apartheid, and to consult about policies for the next ten years.
About 500 people were invited to the conference - education, health and local government officials; teachers and teacher-trainers, health workers, voluntary organisations, private sector creche owners, trade unionists and academics. There was a small contingent from abroad, mainly from other African countries.
Conferences in Africa, especially in South Africa, are much more lively affairs than in countries like the UK. Many delegates wear brightly coloured traditional clothes and head-dresses, and song and dance are an essential part of the proceedings.
At the beginning and end of a session people will sing - in exquisite harmonies and ululating - while others will stand up in front of their seats and clap and dance rhythmically and energetically to the music, despite the cramped spaces.
Delegates are also very courteous. They thank and compliment the speakers, even if they disagree. 'I am going to make a negative comment,' said one delegate, 'but I will do so in a very polite manner.' The conference was held in English, but for most people present, English was a second or third language.
Perhaps the best indication of change and progress was the background of the organisers and delegates. They were truly representative of multi-racial South Africa - Xhosa, Zulu, Venda, Sotho and many other groupings, with a small minority of white Afrikaaner and English-speaking South Africans.
It is hard to think of anywhere else in the world where such equality and rapport exists between such ethnically diverse communities.
Given South Africa's history, it was remarkable in my workshop to see a white Afrikaaner man deferring to the knowledge and expertise of our female Xhosa rapporteur; both grew up under very different power relationships.
And, unusually, about 15 per cent of the delegates were men.
The conference was opened by the distinguished minister of education, Naledi Pandour. She pointed out that South Africa is a young nation - there are 7 million children aged under seven. It is also, ten years after the end of apartheid, still a very unequal nation. One quarter of under-fives are inadequately nourished and severely underweight. The infant mortality rate (children who die before they are five) is very high for a country of South Africa's wealth. Fifteen per cent of children in school are failing badly by the age of eight. The worst conditions are in rural areas.
Toll of AIDS
Underlying these statistics is the terrible scourge of HIV/AIDS. So many of the gains that have been made in South Africa have been eroded by illness and death. It is hard to know the exact figures, but around a million young children in South Africa are orphans because their parents have died from HIV/AIDS.
A proportion of these young children are themselves infected. Elderly grandparents and older siblings carry the burden of caring for the orphans.
Many households are headed by a child.
South Africa is better equipped than many countries to address the disaster, but as one delegate said, 'If this were a war we would be devastated at the numbers who have been killed, and we would mobilise all the country's resources to stop the killing. But with HIV/AIDS we do not know how to cope.'
Early childhood in South Africa, therefore, is a special landmark. It is a first stop to try to offset orphanhood, poverty and inequality. A main aim of the conference was to try to develop inter-sectoral working, so that at a local and national level everyone pulled together to improve the circumstances of young children.
For instance, agricultural policies (seed distribution, food gardens, food preparation and storage) and water and sanitation make all the difference to young children's well-being. It is not only education and health that need to co-operate closely, but all services.
Early years education
An important, and much debated policy, is to introduce 'grade R' classes in schools. School for South Africans begins at the age of six, but schools are encouraged to introduce a reception 'grade R' year.
Many people working in the voluntary and private sector feel strongly that the formal and often over-crowded South African schools are the wrong place for younger children. As part of the conference, we visited local early childhood development facilities. I was lucky to visit Kuzimsela primary school, a basic brick building serving a squatter camp. Some of the poorest children in urban areas live in camps like this, but the school was making gallant efforts to cope.
The teachers for the two grade R classes had been recruited from the local community, and were undergoing in-service training while working. They were supported by Dinah Sikhosana, the school specialist in special needs. The classes were well equipped and the children were taught in Zulu. About half the classes were provided with food and uniforms by the school.
The school has a strong HIV/AIDS policy; an inclusion statement stressing the rights of every child; HIV/AIDS training for teachers; education programmes for parents to combat stigma; a nutrition policy which includes school food gardens to provide fresh vegetables; and close links with the local health clinic for referral for sick children and parents.
A local arts college linked with the school, and professional drummers ran extra classes for first grade children. The complexity and agility of the children's dancing to the intricate drum rhythms was spectacular. The school even contributed to the burial society for the local community - a sad reflection on the times. The young children who went to Kuzimsela, at least, benefited from their experience.
Indigenous knowledge
Another aim of the conference was to explore indigenous knowledge. Most early childhood development training materials are derived from Anglo-American sources. They put forward ideas about ages and stages which are implicitly individualistic, and which often assume that toys and other resources will be freely available.
Donors like UNICEF and the World Bank often unwittingly promote these westernised models of child development. But in South Africa, as in many other countries, these ideas need to be challenged. As one Department of Education official said to me, 'This is how we were socialised, we live a communal life.'
Individual choice, privacy and personal space are unfamiliar experiences to many in South Africa. I discussed indigenous knowledge with Hasina Ebrahim, a Muslim academic from the University of KwaZulu Natal in Durban, who was leading the curriculum workshop at the conference.
She felt strongly that there were many areas where everyday practices with young children need to be explored more carefully. Multilingual strategies and language identity are important issues for cultural survival in a world where English is the dominant global language and English native speakers consider mono-lingualism as acceptable.
In South Africa it is normal for children to be bilingual or multilingual, and this is too rich an experience to risk losing. In addition, for many children what is important to daily life in their community is an emphasis on oral skills - listening, memorising, reciting, performing - rather than written skills.
Another aspect of indigenous knowledge is the expectation of close physical contact - something which is natural in African childrearing, where young children are rarely alone day or night, but something which, in our country, we feel uncomfortable about.
The children at Kuzimsela, too, illustrated how rhythm and dance are an integral part of cultural identity. Their mastery of dance is not an extra skill they have learned. It is the way that they naturally think about and use their bodies.
It was a privilege to be a guest at this conference. Marie-Louise Samuels, who heads the early childhood unit in the Department of Education in South Africa, described the conference as a landmark in the development of early childhood services there. She and her colleagues recognise that there is a long way to go, and they face the enormous challenge of HIV/AIDS. Like everywhere else, there are many tensions in trying to reconcile the interests of the different sectors and competing professional interests.
Some delegates complained that the conference was an expensive showpiece rather than a truly democratic forum. But, whatever the reservations, the South Africans deserve our admiration for their openness and willingness to consider and embrace new ideas in a truly multi-racial society.
Helen Penn is Professor of Early Childhood Studies at the University of East London. Her new book, Unequal Childhoods: Young Children's Lives in Poor Countries, is published by Routledge