A new study from the Oppenheimer Memorial Trust on the state of education is a timely reminder of the shameful neglect of the majority of SA’s youngest children.
Pre-schools relieve parents of the burden of childcare so they can more easily earn a living, and offer a critical avenue for the government to support children from poor families with free meals and social services. But most importantly, they prepare children for primary school, laying vital foundations for the skills they require to progress through the education system.
Yet only a fifth of SA’s youngest children benefit from early learning programmes of a decent quality. The rest start school with such enormous deficits that teachers struggle to close the gap, and by the time children reach grade 4 more than 80% cannot read for meaning.
Almost 30 years into democracy, early childhood development remains grossly underfunded and woefully understaffed. It was allocated a paltry R9.7bn out of the R309bn set aside for basic education in the 2023 fiscal year, and requires an extra 410,000 early-learning practitioners and support workers to achieve universal access.
As the government wrestles with tough spending choices ahead of the next budget cycle, it would do well to prioritise one of SA’s most neglected cohorts. Investing in their wellbeing will not only give them a better chance in life, but benefit society as a whole.
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