In an urgent application brought before the Johannesburg high court, the Equal Education Law Centre wants the right to early childhood development (ECD) to become part of the right to a basic education.
In an urgent application brought before the Johannesburg high court, the Equal Education Law Centre wants the right to early childhood development (ECD) to become part of the right to a basic education.
But, in response to the application, the Gauteng education department said it had “no duty” to provide early childhood development centres to underage children.
The Equal Education bid is the second part of an application against the department over its failure to provide school placements for learners affected by the fire that engulfed the Usindiso building in Marshalltown, Johannesburg, last year, killing 77 people.
A commission of inquiry launched to establish the cause of the fire found that the relocation of many families forced children to leave their school. Sixty learners remain in limbo in that regard.
The first part of the application — which Equal Education launched in October and is being supported by the parents of affected children — was heard last week in the Johannesburg high court. It seeks to declare the Gauteng education department’s failure to place the learners into school as “unconstitutional”.
“In the Constitution, it says that everyone has a right to a basic education. And our argument now with these circumstances [is that] that this basis should mean or extend to be inclusive of early childhood development,” Equal Education Law Centre attorney Yolisa Piliso told the Mail & Guardian with regard to the second part of the application.
Responding to the court application, the Gauteng department said its education MEC “has no duty to place children who are below the compulsory school-going age”.
“As such the parents of children below school-going age are encouraged to enrol their children at any registered ECD centre,” the department’s response to Equal Education’s court application dated October 2024 reads.
It added that in South Africa “the provisioning of early childhood education is done by private providers, government’s role is to coordinate, regulate and support”.
The department said of the 17 families that the Equal Education Law Centre application makes mention of, “parents were not keen to place their children in ECD centres”.
Piliso said Equal Education would challenge the department’s decision on the basis that early childhood development “benefits the child”.
“We understand the importance of access to any childhood development [centre] as part of the biggest milestone, or a cornerstone of access to learning,” he said.
In 2022, the government transferred responsibility for all ECD functions to the national department of basic education to try to strengthen the early childhood development system which “encompasses the critical period from birth to five years of age”.
In its application the Equal Education Law Centre also seeks to amend the Gauteng admission regulation and the national admission policy to make provisions for learners to access education in times of emergencies, again using the example of Usindiso.
“Despite knowing children were out of school, the Gauteng government has failed to create any meaningful plans to address this crisis,” Piliso in a statement.
The Gauteng department’s admissions regulations make no mention of emergency provisions for learners.
Piliso said the court had given the department 60 days to “report on the progress that they have made around the placement”.
Responding to queries from the M&G, the Federation of Governing Bodies of South African Schools (Fedsas) said it empathised with the Usindiso learners and that case law would determine the outcome of the case.
“There is no right to attend an ECD centre, but if promises were made, then there is an obligation to fulfill them,” Fedsas chief executive Jaco Deacon said.
The Gauteng department had not responded to questions from the M&G by the time of publication.