About 5,2-million children under seven are not catered for in South Africa’s early childhood development (ECD) programmes.
Only 1% of the R104-billion education budget is allocated for ECD. Yet a major report released this week shows that investment in ECD pays massive dividends in the health and emotional wellbeing of the children — and in national economic terms.
Unesco’s Education for All Global Monitoring Report 2007 surveys the progress 164 countries have made towards reaching the six goals they agreed upon in Dakar, Senegal, in 2000. Expanding and improving ECD provision — the first goal — for the most vulnerable and disadvantaged children is given special attention in the report.
The other goals include: free and compulsory primary education for all; a 50% improvement in adult literacy; gender equality in access to education; measurable improvements in literacy and numeracy; and essential life skills.
”Time is running out to meet the Education for All goals set in 2000,” the report says. ”Despite continued overall global progress at the primary level, including for girls, too many children are not in school, drop out early or do not reach minimal learning standards. By neglecting the connections among early childhood, primary and secondary education and adult literacy countries are missing opportunities to improve basic education across the board — and, in the process, the prospects of children, youth and adults everywhere.”
ECD should support children’s survival, growth and learning — including health, nutrition and hygiene and cognitive, social, physical and emotional development — from birth to entry into primary school. In developing countries a child has a 40% chance of living in extreme poverty and 10,5-million children die every year from preventable diseases before the age of five.
”It is a rare public policy initiative that promotes fairness and social justice and at the same time promotes productivity in the economy and in society at large,” says the report quoting Nobel economics laureate James Heckman. ”Investing in disadvantaged young children is such a policy.”
Not only are skills acquired in ECD programmes a foundation for all future learning, the report says, but economic returns on ECD investments are reaped over a longer period than those targeting older children or adults. A US study from the 1960s tracked ECD participants from three to 40 years old and found increased IQ levels at age five, higher rates of graduation from high school and higher earnings at age 40.
”Detailed analysis suggests that the [ECD] programme yielded a 17:1 benefit to cost ratio,” the report says.
”The impact [of ECD in developing countries] is stronger for children from poor families than for more advantaged children: participation results in lower dropout and repetition rates in primary school.”
South Africa’s enrolment rate of 16% in pre-primary education lags behind that of other sub-Saharan countries, such as Seychelles (90%), Mauritius (83%), Equatorial Guinea (39%), The Gambia (27%), Tanzania (29%) and Kenya (29%), but is well ahead of that of Ghana (6%), Côte d’Ivoire (3%) and Senegal (3%).
But South Africa is not alone in its minuscule budgetary allocation for ECD. Of 79 countries that supplied Unesco with appropriate data, 65 allocate less than 10% of education spending to ECD and more than half allocate less than 5%. Of the 14 countries allocating more than 10%, most were in Europe.
In her budget speech to Parliament Education Minister Naledi Pandor conceded that ECD ”is one of our poor performance areas” and that large percentage increases to the ECD budget of more than 40% last year and again this year are nevertheless ”off a low base”. But ”the sector”, she says, ”is a priority now and in the immediate future”.
In absolute terms ECD provincial education budgets will grow from R686,2-million in 2006/2007 to R1,3-billion in 2009/10, notes the Institute for Democracy in South Africa’s budget analyst Russell Wildeman. This means that ECD’s share of overall spending on education is due to rise from a low of 0,6% in 2003/2004 to 1,2%, he says.
The Unesco report highlights
Primary school enrolments grew most rapidly between 1999 and 2004 in sub-Saharan Africa (27%) and south and west Asia (19%), but by only 6% in the Arab states;
In the same period, the number of primary school-age children not enrolled fell by 21-million to 77-million. Sub-Saharan Africa and south and west Asia are home to more than three-quarters of these children;
There are not enough qualified and motivated teachers to meet the Education for All goals set for 2015 — sub-Saharan Africa alone needs 2,4-million to 4-million new teachers;
Enrolment at secondary schools is rising, but still low in sub-Saharan Africa (30%), south and west Asia (51%) and the Arab states (66%);
School fees are ”still far too common, a major obstacle to the enrolment and continued participation of the poor in primary school”; and
One in five adults (781-million worldwide) lack minimum literacy skills and two-thirds of these are women.