Baby elephant in the room

Nic Spaull’s alarming analysis (Basic education thrown under the bus, April 17) of the drop in per pupil expenditure in the South African education system since 2010 will have many of your readers reaching for their favourite pain-relief tipple, but he does not cover the baby elephant in the room, namely the neglect of early childhood development by the state.

The graph used to illustrate Spaull’s piece reveals that government expenditure on basic education ranges from the best-performing province finding nearly R21,000 per pupil per year in 2010 to the worst performer in 2019 having budgeted to spend just over R15,000 per pupil. This is hardly what one expects from a country in which the Bill of Rights guarantees access to basic education to all — without the “progressive realisation” and “available resources” limitations that apply to other socioeconomic rights, including the right to higher education.

The fact that a further R57bn will go to higher education over the next three years to meet the demands of the #FeesMustFall lobby is not going to make matters easier for the provision of basic education. The unpalatable but unavoidable truth is that those receiving higher education have the vote, and most in the basic education system do not. A general election is due by mid-2019.

The provision of early childhood development still languishes in the “care” of the dysfunctional Department of Social Development, which cannot get its act together to pay welfare grants, let alone educate pre-primary school children. Too many children of the poor are not exposed to early childhood development, and the quality of much of that on offer in SA leaves much to be desired, despite being the area of education in which the best return on investment is possible. Indeed, literacy levels generally, and pass rates in the first year of higher education, would be obvious beneficiaries of quality early childhood development for all.

The National Development Plan (NDP) recognises these facts, but the political will to act on its proposal to move responsibility for the provision of early childhood development to the Department of Basic Education was not forthcoming in the Zuma years. Instead, early childhood development continues to languish in the neglectful custodianship of a department not designed, equipped, skilled, properly staffed and funded to provide any education effectively and efficiently.

Perhaps the “new dawn” will attend to the NDP proposal that: “There should be a policy and programme shift to ensure that the Department of Basic Education takes the core responsibility for the provision and monitoring of early childhood development.” In the meantime, ventilation of similar research to that revealed in Spaull’s gloominducing but eye-opening opinion piece is required in respect of early childhood development.

Paul Hoffman SC

Director, Accountability Now