Battling parents face fresh expense
CASH-STRAPPED parents will have to add another expense to their monthly budget. The Department of Basic Education (DBE) is set to announce that all children in South Africa must attend Early Childhood Development (ECD) centres before they start grade one. And while education experts and unions have reacted positively to news, they stressed that it has to be free.
The draft Basic Education Laws Amendment (Bela) Bill is currently before Parliament, and while parents may bemoan the extra expense, the experts say it will be worthwhile in the long run. The bill has been in the works for four years, and when the process is complete, Parliament will make a public announcement on the status of the amendments.
But ECD centres are privately owned, and parents will have to pay what is agreed between themselves and the operators.
Education spokesperson Elijah Mhlanga said parents understood the need for their children to be in ECD centres. “Even with the current situation, the country has seen an increase of up to one million children in registered ECD centres in the country. The government aims to expand the offering at this level,” he said.
And while parents might bemoan the extra costs, the department said the country could not afford a situation where its children cannot read or write for meaning by the time they are 10 years old.
“South Africans have demanded that quality education is an urgent matter, and that it needs to be fixed from the foundation phase. That’s exactly what the department is doing right now. The country cannot be held back from implementing changes because of a short-term challenge. If anything, the Covid-19 crisis means we must do even more to improve the standard of education,” Mhlanga said.
Ruksana Osman, a professor of education at the University of the Witwatersrand, and the senior deputy Vice-Chancellor: Academic, at Wits, said while she believes ECD is a good investment, affordability would be key.
“It’s important you raise the issue of affordability, and rightly so. I am assuming that this will be free ECD, especially for those from poor households who need this intervention,” Osman said.
“For a long time now we have known that good quality ECD interventions have a positive impact on later school success, and even success in early adulthood. The point is that good quality ECD is vital for later development, and this should have been done many years ago,” she added.
Elbie Henning, a professor of educational linguistics and lead researcher at the University of Johannesburg’s Institute for Childhood Education, said while it was ideal for children to attend an ECD centre or pre-school prior to going to primary school, using private institutions shouldn’t be the only way to go about it.
“I’m not sure that the only way to do that is to go to private institutions. I think it’s important to find out what the Education Department offers in this regard. The more children that can get ready for school, the better. And the better they are prepared before they start learning to read and to do mathematics and so on, it would be ideal.
“The question remains, however, who are the people who are going to do the teaching? What I think it comes down to is who will be in the classrooms with the children – and that is a far more important question,” Henning said.
Dr Gabrielle Wills, an education economist and researcher in the Department of Economics at Stellenbosch University, said while the education system was well positioned for grade R to become compulsory, significant improvements needed to be made to the quality of what is offered. “In post-apartheid South Africa, there has been considerable expansion in access to early childhood development,” Wills said.
“The DBE’s Action Plan to 2024 indicates that in 1998, 18% of children aged 0 to 6 were attending a pre-school, meaning some kind of education and care institution outside a school. By 2017, that figure had reached 43%. Most of this expansion occurred before 2012. Schools-based Grade R increased from 13% to 72% of the age five cohort between 1999 and 2017.”
The Federation of Associations of Governing Bodies of South African Schools (FEDSAS) CEO, Dr Jaco Deacon, said the government had to take financial responsibility if parents were unable to afford it. “I believe this will be a good thing for children and, in principle, we support it, but the state needs to have a financial plan on the table, or this will just be a ‘pie in the sky’ discussion,” he said.
Deacon believes money will be the greatest stumbling block, and if parents are unable to afford it, they should apply for school fee exemptions and the government would then have to support these children.
Basil Manuel, executive director of the National Professional Teachers’ Organisation of South Africa, said introducing compulsory grade R schooling would be beneficial in improving the quality of SA’s educational system, but warned there were huge challenges to overcome if a successful national Grade R class was to be introduced.