KwaZulu-Natal’s education system faces a significant crisis as the department fails to pay early childhood development subsidies on time, adversely affecting nutrition for children in care. (Photo: Gallo Images / Die Burger / Jaco Marais) As questions around combatting child malnutrition take centre stage in South African discourse, a court case unfolding in KwaZulu-Natal is revealing how deficiencies in the province’s subsidisation system for early childhood development (ECD) centres may be contributing to the crisis.
The Legal Resources Centre, representing the Friends of South Africa Early Childhood Development Forum and the KwaZulu-Natal Early Childhood Development Alliance (KZN ECD Alliance), has taken the KZN Department of Education to court over an alleged widespread failure to pay subsidies to registered early learning centres on time.
The applicants report that in some cases, centres are facing up to a year of unpaid subsidies.
This comes at a time when food security among children is in the spotlight, due to President Cyril Ramaphosa’s commitment to ending child stunting by 2030 in his State of the Nation Address, as well as the recent South African Human Rights Commission’s food system inquiry, which saw a number of organisations red flag the problem of childhood malnutrition.
/file/attachments/orphans/Kiara_535615.jpeg "Kiara Govender, an attorney at the Legal Resources Centre in Durban, says the aim of the centre’s court case against the KwaZulu-Natal Department of Education is to secure relief for early childhood development centres with outstanding subsidy payments across the province. (Photo: Kiara Govender)")
“For nutrition, from the get go, we’ve been informed by our clients that with an unreliable budget, they cannot stick to the Department of Health… nutrition guidelines for the meals that should be provided at ECD centres. It’s just too unaffordable to do that because they can’t commit to paying service providers,” said Kiara Govender, an attorney at the Legal Resources Centre in Durban.
“Some centres started closing early to get them out of that requirement of providing lunch, or some have asked parents to send a packed lunch. But then, for many of those children in marginalised communities, parents are sending them to these centres specifically for meals, because it could be the only meal that they’re getting in the day. And when this is also being withdrawn, it often results in parents no longer sending them.”
Hunger for change
Lawrence Mngomezulu, the deputy chairperson of Friends of South Africa Early Childhood Development Forum and principal of Umusa Uyasilandela ECD Centre, told Daily Maverick that his programme was still waiting on outstanding subsidy payments for April, May, June and September of 2024.
“It makes life difficult. Remember, you need to buy food and then pay [staff] stipends. If you haven’t been paid [subsidies], you must now go and borrow from someone to pay, and when you borrow the money, it comes with interest,” he said.
Mngomezulu’s centre, like many others, operates in an area where caregivers often struggle to pay fees for early learning programmes. He charges a monthly amount of R100 per child. Despite having 46 children at the centre, he says he is lucky to collect about R1,200 in total fees each month.
“In our case, it’s a rural area with no kind of employment… You can’t force them to pay,” he said.
“In my centre, you would find that… [the caregivers of some children] aren’t employed, and the only meal the children can get is from the ECD centre. Now, if that doesn’t come, it really affects the development of the child. It’s really a sad story when the subsidy doesn’t come, because where are they going to get the meal? Sometimes… one has to fork out from one’s own pocket to pay this.”
/file/attachments/orphans/Lawrence_242488.jpeg "Lawrence Mngomezulu, the deputy chairperson of the Friends of South Africa Early Childhood Development Forum, says the KwaZulu-Natal Department of Education’s failure to pay early childhood development subsidies on time has made it difficult to provide food and pay staff stipends at early learning centres. (Photo: Lawrence Mngomezulu)")
In 2025, the ECD subsidy was increased from R17 to R24 per child per day. Mngomezulu said that in some cases, centres had been paid an amount below R24 per child over the past year, resulting in further confusion.
Unpaid subsidies had caused delays in the payment of staff at centres, he added.
“That is why, in the ECD space, we end up losing practitioners almost every day. They’d rather go and work in a supermarket somewhere than to work in the ECD space,” he said.
Battle in court
The problem of unpaid ECD subsidies in KZN was originally flagged as early as 2024, when Friends of South Africa Early Childhood Development Forum and the KZN ECD Alliance raised concerns about unfair subsidy practices with the provincial Department of Education.
However, it was in May 2025 that the Legal Resource Centre formally initiated a case in the KZN Division of the High Court in Pietermaritzburg, representing the two ECD forums, as well as three centres: Zenzeleni Crèche, Phumelela Crèche and Sakhokwethu Crèche.
The applicants sought relief from the court in two parts. The first part of the litigation, heard on 26 May 2025, resulted in an order compelling the KZN Department of Education to pay all outstanding subsidy amounts owed to the three named ECD centres.
The second part seeks a structural interdict from the court ordering the department to file a comprehensive report listing all subsidised ECD centres in the province, detailing the total subsidy amounts owed to each centre, and directing that all outstanding subsidies be paid within one week of the report being filed. These proceedings are still ongoing, with a hearing date set down for 18 May 2026, when the Centre for Child Law will be making an amicus curiae application.
Govender noted that while there was an improved turnaround time for the payment of subsidies to the Zenzeleni, Phumelela and Sakhokwethu crèches in the wake of the 2025 court proceedings, all three centres had instalments outstanding in 2026.
“We’ve also been informed by our clients, the KZN ECD Alliance and Friends of South Africa Early Childhood Development Forum, that the issue is still widespread throughout the province… That’s why we’re really pushing for this next hearing, because our aim is to secure relief throughout KZN,” she said.
Mandulo Khuzwayo, chairperson of the KZN ECD Alliance, said that the delayed payments created challenges in the development and maintenance of proper infrastructure at centres, as well as shortages of essential teaching equipment.
“We would like to see strict adherence to payment timelines, with districts being held accountable to ensure that claims are submitted on time and that unnecessary delays are eliminated,” he said on the forum’s hopes for the outcomes of the court case.
In March 2026, the KZN Department of Education reportedly made renewed promises to backpay outstanding subsidies in tranches for ECD centres falling under the KZN ECD Alliance and Friends of South Africa Early Childhood Development Forum, according to Govender. However, it was unclear how many affected centres had received payment.
Daily Maverick reached out to the KZN Department of Education for comment on the issue of unpaid subsidies in the province, but had not received a response by the time of publication.
Financial intervention
In August 2025, the KZN provincial treasury announced that it was intervening in the province’s Department of Education, using powers legislated under section 18 of the Public Finance Management Act. This came after the education department had overspent its budget by March of that year.
Citing the education department’s “inability to remedy its financial situation”, the KZN treasury stated that it was withholding all funding, excluding that related to the compensation of employees, conditional grants and transfer payments to schools.
“Any orders that are required to be issued must be approved by the provincial treasury,” it said.
“The provincial treasury requested the provincial Department of Education to provide a detailed analysis of all unpaid creditors and the repayment plan in order to ensure that the department repays existing creditors before incurring new debt.”
Govender told Daily Maverick that until the KZN treasury’s announcement, the Legal Resource Centre had been unsure of the factors behind the delayed subsidy payments.
“At that time, we wrote to the treasury, and eventually we met with [KZN MEC for Finance Francois Rodgers] in January [2026]. He explained how the implementation of section 18 of the Public Finance Management Act… was intended as a corrective mechanism to ensure that education would remain prioritised, and that the department would be more effective in fulfilling its obligations,” she said.
“What necessitated it was that they were persistently overspending, and they had poor cash-flow management internally. So, every year they would go into the new financial year owing money for the previous one.”
While there had been issues with the payment of ECD subsidies in other provinces, Govender noted that the problem was particularly dire in KZN, prompting the Legal Resource Centre’s involvement. DM
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