LESEGO MAHLANGU

As SA prepares for a new academic year in its basic education system, familiar debates once again take centre stage, ranging from access to education and school readiness to persistent infrastructure backlogs.

This year, however, society’s attention must turn more deliberately to early childhood development (ECD) as a core basic education competence and to recognising that it is not merely a care sector but an economy; it is an essential pillar of social and economic development.

Despite ECD falling under the department of basic education, it still lacks a clear and enforceable legislative framework that guarantees equal access to quality early learning for all children.

While this gap is often presented as a problem affecting only the poorest households, a closer examination reveals a far more complex system shaped by class divisions, the persistent undervaluing of care work, limited access to land for developmental infrastructure and an exploitative vacuum created by a government that has failed to fully exercise its mandate.

Across classes and communities, access to ECD is mediated by competing household priorities, where meeting one basic need often comes at the expense of another.

In a township such as Mamelodi, a low-income household may be forced to choose between feeding the family and enrolling a child in an ECD centre.

Meanwhile, in a middle-income urban area such as Midrand, households—often headed by young black women — contend with average monthly rent of no less than R5,000 while facing ECD fees that can reach R4,000 per child.

In both cases, the absence of a universal, publicly funded and subsidised ECD system turns early learning into a private burden, exposing how inequality is embedded in SA’s approach to education and childhood development.

These contestations are not abstract ideas but lived realities shaping SA’s ECD landscape. For the poorest households, the contestation is one of survival.

Although the state subsidy increased to R24 per child per day in 2025, this remains far below the estimated R36–R48 required to provide basic quality care.

Nearly half of children in the poorest households are at risk of stunting and failing to develop foundational learning skills. These pressures are further intensified by infrastructure barriers, as many ECD centres in poor communities operate from informal structures and are unable to meet registration requirements, excluding them from subsidies and shifting costs back onto already struggling families.

For the middle class, the contestation is different but no less structural. Limited public investment in ECD and schooling, particularly in fast-growing provinces such as Gauteng, has forced families into an expensive and largely unregulated private market.

Households earning just above the subsidy threshold of R9,000 per month are disqualified from government support and must absorb steep annual fee increases of between 6% and 10% while incomes stagnate and other household priorities intensify.

In the absence of viable public alternatives, the private sector is able to exploit this gap, prioritising profit under the guise of offering “competitive” education.

This has entrenched a deeply unequal, two-tier ECD system in which those who can afford it compete for scarce high-quality private spaces, driving up costs and reinforcing broader economic and social fractures.

All of this unfolds against a backdrop of political and policy neglect that continues to undermine early childhood development in SA, with devastating consequences for millions of children.

Despite evidence that early learning is foundational, less than 1% of the national education budget is allocated to ECD, a situation scholars have described as structurally damaging.

The sector remains a largely private, quasi-market system.

If left unaddressed, this status quo will only deepen generational inequality, particularly as the government continues to overlook the care and social development economy as a driver of inclusive growth.

If properly supported, the ECD sector has the potential to advance women’s economic participation and entrepreneurship while providing a public system of care that inspires confidence in social welfare rather than profit extraction.

Strengthening oversight and policy implementation is therefore critical. This includes addressing structural loopholes such as access to land, without which communities cannot build schools, crèches or safe play spaces. Subsequently, without equal education, land cannot translate into innovation towards an inclusive economy.

In Tshwane, a review of the town planning scheme (2008, revised 2014) has shown that many communities face prohibitive costs in establishing ECD centres due to complex consent-use applications and development charges.

In response, the coalition government has moved toward waiving development contributions and simplifying land-use consent processes for ECD establishments in townships, rural areas and former homelands.

This is a critical step in ensuring that land serves the purpose of human development rather than exclusion.

However, such policy shifts must be matched with sustained political commitment — one that not only sees these reforms through but continues to pursue an inclusive, publicly supported early childhood development system that affirms the right of every child to an equal start in life.