MAKHANDA: “They just sat there. Some were so trussed up in their thick winter jackets that they could barely move.”
These are the heartbreaking conditions related to me about a crèche for young children in Makhanda.
No outdoor play was allowed, donated toys remained behind lock and key. Working parents had entrusted their children to the care of someone running an ECD centre, but it would probably have been better for those children to be playing around at home or in a neighbour’s yard.
At least they would have the freedom to explore and learn.
But picture this instead: In a modest maroon shack behind a Makhanda nursery school’s swings, 12 mothers sit in a circle laughing as their toddlers explore handmade toys on dusty floors. The mothers are learning something profound: that playing with children can change everything.
This Playmat session is facilitated by the Lebone Centre’s Kaylynne Rushin and Akia Lucas. “Playing with your child doesn’t need to be expensive; it’s all about the bond and the skills they gain from it,” Rushin says, taking out handmade plastic balls and picture books made from cereal boxes and magazine pictures they taught the parents to make so that they could play and ‘read’ with their kids at home.
Laughter echoes through the room as they begin to play, sing and dance.
And as the game session ends, the parents sit in a circle and take turns expressing profound gratitude for the program.
“It has helped me love my child,” says Olwethu Mphofu. The advice and encouragement she gets from the sessions help her sustain an environment of love and support for her child. “In the next 15 years, I will see my child at Rhodes University.”
Another mother, Laurene Jackson, says: “My daughter struggled with her development; she couldn’t speak properly, and then there was a stage where she couldn’t walk. But we joined the program, and everything got better. She started walking, started growing. Now she is five, and she can count to 100.”
The funding crisis
Early childhood development (ECD) is a term that is being bandied about a lot these days. Minister of Basic Education Siviwe Gwarube has allocated a substantial amount of additional funds for ECD centres to register through the Bana Pele Mass Registration Drive and receive an increased subsidy. A good start. But much more needs to be done.
The budget figures bear this out – R332 billion was allocated to primary and secondary education this year, while another R142 billion was allocated to tertiary education (plus R55 billion for NSFAS and R42 billion for skills and vocational training).
But ECD gets around R10 billion. That means ECD gets just 1.8% of the national education budget.
This is putting the cart before the horse.
It also implies that small, pre-school children are ‘lesser beings’ – ‘residual’ persons without full human rights and somehow unworthy of proper developmental and educational support.
The Thrive by Five Index 2024, the largest survey of preschool outcomes in South Africa, paints a grim picture: Only 42% of enrolled 4-year-olds are on track for early learning, with children in higher-fee centres faring better (69% on track in high-fee ELPs vs. 34% in low-fee). Alarmingly, 7% show signs of moderate or severe physical stunting, linked to long-term cognitive delays.
For the 30% of 4-year-olds not enrolled in ECD centres – around 350,000 children – the risks are even higher, with a sub-study revealing that just 18% are on track in early learning and 18% are stunted.
These indices confirm that hunger and malnutrition remain widespread. Equally alarming is the statistic that shows the majority of teachers and parents were not aware that their children were falling short of learning milestones. That is not good news.
Quality varies wildly
The well-known African adage, “It takes a village to raise a child”, implies that a child is part of an ecosystem of support and that various role players contribute to.
It’s bad enough that most children are not enrolled in preschools, but crèches and ECD centres also vary substantially in quality. Some are well-run facilities with solid learning programmes for the appropriate stimulation of young children; others are little more than holding pens.
But even some of the great ones don’t get support. Kate Kooson, a dedicated educator at the All for Christ ECD centre in Makhanda, has run her preschool independently for 10 years. Multiple attempts to secure government funding have been unsuccessful.
Many NGOs do their best to support ECD centres, but their resources are limited, and one of the hardest nuts to crack remains parental involvement. And yet, many parents will say, “We didn’t know”.
Naycan Ferreira from Rhodes University Pre-school in Makhanda has witnessed this divide firsthand. She describes two distinct groups of parents: those who are “eager” to know about their child’s learning progress, and others who consider it “insignificant”.
Perhaps the answer lies in finding new ways to communicate, utilising the technology now at our disposal. Most families have cell phones, and a myriad of resources can be shared in this way.
Naycan says, “If we are doing a certain theme or activity at school, we share our outline with the parents so that they know we’re busy with pets now. So, at home, the children will take what they’re learning at school and apply it at home with the help of the parents.”
She says staff attend training sessions where they learn subject matter and pedagogy, but “what they lack is teaching us how to effectively communicate with parents”.
What good ECD looks like
There needs to be widespread knowledge that learning through play is critical; that helping children to ‘read’ their world and tell their stories is a vital step in their literacy development. Early exposure to books, stories and language is equally important. Neuroscientists tell us that this helps to lay down the pathways in the brain that are needed for reading and writing. Tactile experiences such as planting and watering, and playing with wooden blocks are also crucial.
Early language development scholars discuss emergent literacy, which implies that it is a process that unfolds over time, beginning in the early years when approximately 80 per cent of a person’s neural pathways are laid down. This puts an end to the idea that children suddenly learn to read and write when they start school. Yes, it is the Foundation Phase teacher’s task to put the pieces of the puzzle together, but the building blocks need to be put in place long before that.
Early means early. There is growing recognition that the First 1,000 Days of a child’s life are crucial, and the Lebone Centre, a Makhanda-based NGO, is one of the organisations that has focused on this through their #EveryBabyMatters programme. Awareness-raising sessions are held at community clinics, followed up by a home visiting programme that helps mothers to understand and implement responsive caregiving and early stimulation.
In this, they are assisted by the Every Word Counts materials developed by the Wordworks early literacy organisation, which aim to show parents and caregivers the importance of talking, singing, telling stories, and reading to young children at home from an early age.
Working in homes and communities to support early childhood development has, in fact, largely been the remit of NGOs. Organisations like Book Dash, the Mikhulu Trust, and Nal’ibali are working to promote early literacy through book access and story-sharing, but their reach remains limited without government support.
The poorest children are falling through the cracks
Yet, as the Thrive by Five Index 2024 reveals, non-enrolled children – often from the poorest households – are missing out entirely. A sub-study of 272 such children found that 82% fell behind in early learning, with 18% experiencing stunted growth. These kids need decent pre-schools or home-based interventions more than ever, yet government support lags.
Moreover, the registration of ECD centres is primarily concerned with infrastructure and child safety, rather than the quality of learning programmes. That is a separate Directorate. Fragmentation is the enemy of our young children – the most recent example being the unspent millions that were voted for the feeding of preschool children. That didn’t happen because the School Nutrition Programme and the implementing ECD agency were unable to agree.
The largest percentage of children not attending any form of preschool is found in the poorest communities. This means that we must find ways to reach those children where they are – in their homes and communities. We also need a significant mind shift in how children are viewed and what constitutes good, responsive caregiving, learning and support for young children. And that requires major campaigns, resources, funding and political will.
A path forward
Thrive by Five offers clear solutions: Boost funding to fix subsidy inefficiencies, train practitioners in effective, appropriate teaching methods, integrate health and nutrition services into Early Learning Programmes, support positive parenting through book access and male involvement, strengthen Grade R as a bridge year, and invest in data to track non-enrolled kids.
What would happen if ECD centres received just half of tertiary education’s R200-billion + budget? What if we insisted on decent wages and cracking good qualifications for ECD practitioners? And we supported them with the resources and the play-based curricula they desperately need? Imagine the role they could play in preparing kids for literacy and numeracy – and a fulfilling life – later on? Add to this support for home-based literacy practices and for libraries, and we could have a game-changing foundation.
At the Makhanda Playmat session, the mothers marvel at how clever their children are for their age, how their bond has increased and how they see a great future for their children.
“At home, when I sometimes struggle with something, she’s the one encouraging me,” says one mother. “That’s why I say she’s intelligent.”
When you support a mother or an ECD teacher in connecting and engaging with children in loving and meaningful ways, kids become better learners and happier individuals.
Time isn’t on our side. We can fiddle while Rome burns, but we ignore the state of our young children at our peril. If the foundation of South Africa’s education system, its ECD centres, lacks consistent, quality support, the literacy problems plaguing primary and secondary schools will persist.
Additional reporting by Rod Amner, Kabelo Mafiri, Kearabetwe Nkadimeng and Onele Rambe
