“We… make bold to say that South Africa is a country of two nations. One of these nations is white, relatively prosperous, regardless of gender or geographic dispersal. It has ready access to a developed economic, physical, educational, communication and other infrastructure. 

“The second and larger nation of South Africa is black and poor, with the worst affected being women in the rural areas, the black rural population in general and the disabled. This nation lives under conditions of a grossly underdeveloped economic, physical, educational, communication and other infrastructure.”

The address, popularly known as the “two nations” speech, captured the unequal nature of our society after four years of democracy. In 2020, this assessment remains largely true across many (if not all) facets of society.

In education, these challenges find expression in the dual nature of our system. On one hand, you have affluent and middle-class parents who have access to quality education through private and highly functional public schools, while the majority of poor and working-class families are confined to dramatically inferior, low-performing schools in under-resourced communities. 

Due to socioeconomic issues including unemployment, poverty and inequality, children from poor households are more likely to start and stay behind, thereby further entrenching the vicious cycle of poverty and inequity. 

Yet, we know from research that access to quality early learning programmes before formal schooling is a key determinant of later academic performance and labour market prospects. 

So what has been the impact of Covid-19 on Early Childhood Development (ECD), particularly for the poor? 

There are approximately six to seven million children aged 0-6 in South Africa. In 2019, about 1.1 million children between the ages of 3-5 did not have access to an early learning programme, be it through a formal ECD centre, a playgroup or a community-based caregiver/day mother like a “gogo”. 

The vast majority of these children come from the 77% of children below the age of six who live in the poorest households. In other words, children from poorer households are likely not to be attending an early learning programme, thus disadvantaging them even before they enter formal schooling in Grade R. 

In fact, a three-year-old from a rich household is twice as likely to access an early learning programme as a child from a poorer household. 

As the Covid-19 pandemic hit South Africa, ECD centres (like all educational institutions) had to be closed in line with lockdown regulations. Now, eight months later, other educational institutions like schools, technical and vocational education training (TVET) colleges and universities have reopened, but the majority of ECD centres largely have not. 

This has had, and will continue to have, significant ramifications for the country across a number of areas, including access to early learning and nutrition as well as the livelihoods of ECD practitioners and business owners (who are largely black women), who depend on government subsidies and parent fees for their financial sustainability. 

Recent data from a survey conducted by a coalition of ECD stakeholders among 4,500 ECD providers (formal centres, playgroups or day mothers) shows that about one third were able to reopen from August 2020 when Level 1 lockdown was implemented. 

The three main reasons cited for not being able to reopen are lack of income/finances, lack of affordability of parents to continue paying fees and lack of affordability to purchase health and safety equipment. 

Put differently, these centres could not reopen because they could not pay salaries or run operations. This was exacerbated by the fact that the government did not pay (or fully pay) subsidies due to them in lockdown and parents didn’t (or couldn’t) pay fees. 

This has had enormous consequences because, unlike other parts of the education sector, the ECD sector is predominantly run by non-profit organisations, micro-entrepreneurs, women, churches or other community-based organisations. 

Although government pays a R17-per-child subsidy to “registered centres”, some of these did not or were not able to receive funding during the lockdown. This is significant because the subsidy alone is not sufficient to meet all the operational requirements of ECD providers, and so parent fees become critical for these providers. 

Furthermore, estimates from the National Income Dynamics Study – Coronavirus Rapid Mobile Survey (NIDS-CRAM) survey indicate that only 13% of 0-6-year-olds accessed ECD services during the lockdown. 

To put this in context, in 2018 access to ECD services across the 0-6-year age cohort was 47% – and this reduced to 13% between March and August 2020. 

The NIDS-CRAM survey also found that children from the richest households were twice as likely to attend or return to an ECD facility by August 2020. 

In other words, once again, the poor suffer the most, and will continue to do so given the transformative nature of quality ECD. 

So what are the implications for ECD and the education sector?

First, the care, stimulation, food, security and learning that are all-important components of quality ECD provision, have been and will continue to be affected for the foreseeable future. 

South Africa is the most unequal society in the world; children from poorer households are already lagging behind in terms of access to ECD and this access gap will widen. 

In terms of nutrition, South Africa already has a high stunting rate with about 27% of children stunted – this will likely be exacerbated with insurmountable implications for their growth, development and later learning in life.  

Second, the impact on community-level providers who play a critical role in bridging the access gap will be felt for a long time. Less affluent parents will be unable to send their children back to ECD centres due to unemployment, hunger and other socioeconomic factors. Therefore, centres will struggle to keep their doors open or provide a quality service even if they can.

Third, at a systemic level, the lack of effective government action in dealing with the ECD challenges brought by Covid-19 leaves a lot to be desired. 

There is no rational reason why the majority of ECD centres have not been reopened since Level 1, despite consultations, lobbying and court action to compel the department of social development (DSD) to allow it. 

What government needs to realise is that if ECD providers in townships and rural areas are not able to keep their doors open, it is the children of the poor who suffer the most. 

Ultimately, it will be state-led intervention through incentives such as relief grants that will save the sector as prevailing socio-economic circumstances of parents and caregivers have changed for the worse. 

Although the hard lockdown is now past us, these studies show how Covid–19 has exacerbated the inequities in the delivery of education in South Africa. 

It shows that affluent parents were able to ensure their children continued to learn during lockdown, while those with less fortunate parents were not able to. 

I know this from my own experiences as a middle-class parent – neither my children nor those in my affluent circles were adversely affected by the closure of ECD centres. Our experience was different from the parents from rural and township areas whose children are still at home due to the closure of ECDs. 

South Africa remains a country of two nations and all facets of society are divided accordingly. 

Education, and by implication ECD, is no different. Covid-19 has sent us a timely reminder of this sad reality. DM/MC

Khaya Tyatya is an education practitioner and a PhD candidate in the education faculty of the University of Johannesburg. Views expressed are his own. 

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