Early childhood development provides a critical window to improve health and wellbeing across life, with impacts that resonate even into the next generation. This is according to the Nurturing Care Framework for Early Childhood Development progress report, released by the World Health Organisation.
The report asserts that even if SA were to get back onto the pre-pandemic trajectory it will still take 86 years before all grade 4 pupils can read for meaning. This forecast has been reinforced by SA’s results from the 2021 Progress in International Reading Literacy Study . The consequences of poor learning outcomes on children cannot be underestimated and radical interventions are necessary to disrupt the status quo. Recently, the chairperson of the 2030 National Reading Panel and former deputy president of the country, Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka, pointed out: “We are not able to fix this country with a silver bullet. We have to begin at the very start — and that means the beginning of a child’s life.
Regarding child outcomes, only 45% of children accessing early learning programmes are developmentally on track. The access gap is highest among 66% of the poorest children — those from quintile one communities. The department states that 600,000 children receive the per child ECD subsidy, and yet about 4.