The unsung heroes of the provision of early childhood development (ECD) are often middle-aged black women who still remain largely unsupported by the government.
The post-1994 government identified ECD early on as a way to address past inequalities. It developed a national integrated plan and set up an interdepartmental committee on ECD, aimed at providing access for all children to a preschool year (what we now know as grade R) by 2010.
But because of limited budgets, physical space and resources, the target was not met. Last year President Jacob Zuma quietly shifted the goalposts in his State of the Nation address, announcing a new plan to achieve universal access to grade R by 2014 and to double the number of children up to the age of four enrolled in some form of ECD.
About 70% of children now attend grade R, but it is in the group up to the age of four where the government has failed to make strides. Budgeting for ECD is complicated: responsibilities are split between national, provincial and local government and are further divided among the departments of health, education and social development.
The national education department spends less than 1% of its budget on ECD services, mainly in the form of Grade R subsidies, resource provision and teacher training. Children too young to attend grade R are seen as the responsibility of the social development department, which focuses largely on helping to set up and fund ECD sites.
Registered ECD centres receive R12 a day for each child who qualifies for a subsidy and 30% of this is allocated to staff salaries. But only 400 000 children benefit from these subsidies.
ECD is regulated by the Children’s Amendment Act of 2007, which mainly envisages ECD sites as nurseries and playschools. Norms and standards that would allow for non-centre-based ECD provision are still in the pipeline and without these it remains difficult for such programmes to find funding. For example, one of these involves volunteers who travel from town to town with books, toys and learning aids. They set up an impromptu playschool, offering children in deep rural areas stimulation and learning opportunities.
Under the current rules, this roving ECD initiative, with no set location or access to water or toilets, would not qualify as an ECD in terms of the Act. “It’s a good programme but it can’t get funding,” Kevin Roussel, the director of the Alliance for Children’s Entitlement to Social Security, said.
The country’s cadre of ECD practitioners is made up largely of middle-aged black women who either have no training or have been trained by NGOs.
“These women have been working for years but often don’t have the paper qualifications that recognise this,” said Patsy Pillay, the director of New Beginnings Training and Development. “We collectively undervalue them by not affirming the work they do and by paying them poor salaries.”
Among the women currently being trained by New Beginnings is Sibongile Basi, who teaches at a small school in rural KwaZulu-Natal. “We have lots of problems with resources and nobody is helping us. We use money from our own pockets to make resources,” she said.
Basi’s class did not receive the resource packs that the government distributed earlier this year. Books and toys are also in short supply so she has to make them herself. For her efforts, she is paid R2 500 a month — hardly a living wage but much more than that earned by ECD practitioners who don’t qualify for state subsidies. These women must live off the meagre fees paid by parents and may take home as little as R250 a month.