No data, no deadline, no dedicated funding: SA’s blind and deaf children face an ECD crisis

The Department of Basic Education (DBE) has acknowledged that it lacks reliable national data showing how many children with disabilities – aged zero to five – are outside registered ECD programmes. There is also no separate, ring-fenced funding allocation specifically aimed at ensuring children with disabilities can access early learning.

The revelations come as the department continues work on a national approach to inclusive ECD, four years after ECD responsibility was transferred from the Department of Social Development to Basic Education.

Concerns were spotlighted on 4 August, when the Limpopo Education Department appeared before the parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Basic Education. MEC Mavhungu Lerule-Ramakhanya and officials were asked by members of Parliament about their plans to ensure deaf and blind children accessed inclusive ECD programmes. Currently, deaf and blind children are often placed alongside pupils with other special needs, in regular ECDs, without access to teachers specifically trained to support hearing or visual impairments.

It quickly became clear the concerns extended beyond Limpopo. “The province has engaged DBE on the need to provide [a] National Framework. The issue was discussed in the interprovincial meeting to agree on a uniform approach,” Limpopo education deputy director-general for corporate governance, coordination and support, Calvin Molongoana, told MPs, adding that the provincial department had begun collating an audit of special schools offering Grade R. 

The issue of access will be a key focus area during a Limpopo ECD Indaba on 1 September, according to the department. The gathering will bring together stakeholders to find solutions to the challenges of inclusive education. 

MPs expressed alarm, especially chairperson Joy Maimela, who said the current situation was exclusionary and could not be rationalised. “We need to have a discussion with DBE because I believe this is a national issue,”  she said. “I was in pain listening to ECD teachers telling us that deaf and blind learners only start around age seven to learn a language. That is the first time they learn to communicate; they live in their own world until they are seven.” 

Responding to EdDesk questions about why a national framework has not yet been finalised and when they expected it to be ready for implementation, the DBE said it is still considering a review of Education White Paper 6, as well as reports commissioned by the Department of Women, Youth and Persons with Disabilities. It was thus “premature” to provide final dates. 

The White Paper on Special Needs Education was adopted 25 years ago. It coincided with the adoption of a White Paper on Early Childhood Education in the same year, 2001.

Ministerial spokesperson Lukhanyo Vangqa acknowledges that when identification, support or access to early learning is delayed, children can enter Grade R or Grade 1 already facing barriers that become progressively harder to overcome.

For deaf children, this can include delayed access to South African Sign Language, where appropriate. Blind and partially sighted children can similarly miss out on early developmental, sensory and learning support.

The scale of the issue remains unknown. Vangqa said that while systems track registered ECD programmes and subsidies, they do not capture disabled children who are excluded, making an accurate estimate impossible.

The DBE identified key barriers preventing access, including untrained practitioners, late diagnosis, weak referral networks and a shortage of assistive devices and adapted learning materials.

Vangqa noted that disabled children can access standard ECD subsidies for poorer households, but admitted that meaningful inclusion carries extra costs for assistive tech and specialised support. “Funding and resourcing… require further consideration,” he said.

Pending a national framework, the government points to existing initiatives such as the Bana Pele 2030 Blueprint, which includes a workstream led by the Children’s Institute at the University of Cape Town. The work develops practical recommendations around early identification, adapting early learning approaches and connecting children and families to health, social and educational services.

PlaySA is a free online training platform for ECD practitioners, with more than 70,000 practitioners accessing it. An Inclusive Education Module has since been added.

Vangqa said the transfer of ECD responsibility to the DBE in 2022 created both a responsibility and an opportunity to strengthen inclusion from the earliest years and better connect early learning with the formal schooling system. 

Four years later, however, the national policy pathway for inclusive ECD remains under consideration.

He insists that inclusion is not being postponed pending adoption of a new framework. The department’s objective is not simply to produce another policy document, but to establish a practical, sustainable system that removes barriers to education.

Tshepo Mantjé, from Real Reform for ECD, which advocates holistic, well-funded, inclusive and quality ECD services, said the barriers  – unclear policy, inadequate funding and limited capacity – reinforce one another. “ECD programmes often lack trained practitioners, accessible materials, assistive devices, specialist support and effective referral pathways. Poor and community-based ECD programmes are expected to provide inclusion without the necessary public support,” said Mantjé. 

Continued delay will deepen educational inequality as blind and deaf children may enter school without adequate language, communication, literacy or independence skills, increasing the risks of inappropriate placement, repetition, exclusion and dropout.

“RR4ECD believes this requires both legal and movement-based action. Families, ECD practitioners, disability organisations and children’s rights groups must organise around shared demands, document exclusion and hold the government accountable,” said Mantjé.

In the meantime, for children and their families, the consequences of waiting are measured not in policy timelines but lost opportunities during the most critical years of development. DM

This story was produced by The Education Desk, a nonprofit newsroom dedicated to addressing schooling challenges in South Africa.