When I became Minister of Basic Education in 2024, one statistic confronted me more than any other: 80% of South African children cannot read for meaning by Grade 4. Behind that number are millions of children whose futures are being shaped long before they enter a classroom.
To understand why, consider two ten-year-olds.
Lindiwe and Nelson are equally bright, equally capable and equally deserving of opportunity. Yet their paths have already begun to diverge.
Lindiwe spent her early years in a quality early childhood development (ECD) programme where she received proper nutrition, structured learning and support from trained practitioners. She was read to from an early age, learned to hold a pencil and arrived at school ready to learn.
By Grade 4, she has spent eight years interacting with books. She reads with understanding, solves mathematics problems confidently and has every opportunity available to her.
Nelson’s story is different. Raised lovingly by his grandmother, he never attended an early learning programme. While she cared deeply for him, she lacked the resources and training to provide the kind of stimulation young children need. He encountered books for the first time in Grade 1 and entered school already behind. While the curriculum moved forward, Nelson struggled to keep up.
When both children sit for the same assessment in Grade 4, Lindiwe succeeds while Nelson is classified among those unable to read for meaning.
Their difference is not talent. It is access.
Nelson did not fail in Grade 4. Our system failed him when he was three years old.
That realisation shaped our decision to reorient the education system around a simple principle: if we want different outcomes, we must strengthen the foundations of learning.
In December 2024, we launched the Strong Foundations, Strong Futures Strategy. Instead of focusing primarily on interventions later in a child’s schooling journey, we committed ourselves to addressing the root causes of educational failure. The evidence is clear: children who miss quality early learning opportunities often spend the rest of their school careers trying to catch up.
That is why early childhood development is not simply another government programme. It is one of the most powerful tools we have to improve educational outcomes, reduce inequality and strengthen South Africa’s future.
The vehicle driving this work is Bana Pele, which means “children first”.
Eighteen months ago, we set ourselves an ambitious goal: universal access to quality early learning by 2030. To achieve this, we developed a shared blueprint that brings together government, practitioners, families, civil society organisations, funders and community partners around a common objective.
From the start, we recognised that achieving this goal would require more than additional programmes or increased funding. It would demand changes to how the system works.
We needed to simplify registration processes, improve coordination across departments, strengthen data systems, improve funding mechanisms and support the ECD workforce. Most importantly, we needed to make it easier for quality programmes to become part of the formal system and reach more children.
Today, we are beginning to see the results.
More children are receiving support than at any point in South Africa’s history. Just two years ago, approximately 748,000 children benefited from the ECD subsidy. Today, that number has grown to 954,700, an increase of more than 200,000 children. We are now within reach of supporting one million children through the subsidy programme.
Government has also significantly increased investment in early learning. The daily subsidy has risen from R17 to R24 per child. The subsidy budget has expanded from R3.43 billion in 2024/25 to R6.49 billion this financial year and is projected to reach R9.1 billion by 2028/29.
In addition, we have established a R496 million Outcomes Based Fund to create 115,000 new ECD spaces in KwaZulu-Natal, the Eastern Cape and Limpopo, provinces where access remains particularly limited.
But budgets alone do not change lives. Children reached do.
To ensure support reaches more children, we must help programmes meet the standards required for registration and funding. That begins with visibility.
For too long, many ECD programmes operated outside the formal system. Practitioners cared for children and communities relied on their services, but government lacked a comprehensive picture of the sector.
That is changing through eCares, South Africa’s first end-to-end digital registration system for early learning programmes. The platform maintains a national master list of centres and verifies practitioners against the National Child Protection Register, strengthening child safety and giving parents greater confidence.
Today, nearly 40,000 early learning programmes are registered, bringing approximately 1.6 million children into view through the system.
Progress is accelerating. By the end of September, 1,343 programmes had achieved Silver or Gold status this year alone. Approval rates have doubled, increasing from around 10 to 15 approvals a day to approximately 25 to 30.
Yet we know technology alone cannot solve every challenge. Many practitioners still need face-to-face support, and not everyone has reliable digital access. We continue to adapt our systems based on the realities experienced by those on the ground.
Another lesson has become increasingly clear: children do not experience government in departmental silos, but our systems often do.
Registering an ECD programme can involve social workers, environmental health practitioners, municipalities and provincial departments. Practitioners should not have to navigate that complexity alone.
To address this, all eight metros and South Africa’s 44 district municipalities are now participating in the registration effort. More than 1,700 environmental health practitioners have been engaged, leading to a fivefold increase in environmental health reports over the past six months.
As one participant in our workshops remarked: “This is where we found each other.”
That sentiment captures the essence of systems change. Real progress occurs when people stop seeing problems as someone else’s responsibility and begin working together toward shared solutions.
At the same time, we are strengthening quality. A human resource development plan for the ECD workforce has been approved, curriculum support materials have been developed in all 11 official languages and a national quality assurance tool is being piloted. A developmental screening tool covering children from birth to five is also helping identify delays and disabilities earlier.
The goal is simple: every child must do more than simply attend an ECD programme. Every child must have the opportunity to thrive.
Partnership remains central to this work. More than 75 NGOs and social service organisations are supporting registration efforts, while Bana Pele community hubs and collaborations with SASSA and Home Affairs are helping families access both birth registration and early learning services.
Despite the progress, our work is far from complete.
Around 1.2 million children aged three to five currently participate in early learning programmes. That still leaves approximately one million children without access.
One million children is not a number we can become comfortable with. It represents the distance we still have to travel.
Government will continue to play its part by improving regulation, investing resources and removing barriers. But Bana Pele was never intended to be a government-only initiative.
Every organisation, practitioner, funder and community leader has a role to play. The question is not whether we support universal access to quality early learning. The real question is: what can each of us do to make the system work better?
Ultimately, neither Lindiwe nor Nelson will ever know which department approved a document, which organisation funded an intervention or which meeting removed an obstacle.
Nor should they.
What matters is that there was a safe place for them to learn at the age of three. That caring, capable adults were there to support them. That the system showed up when they needed it.
Seven years from now, today’s three-year-olds will be ten. When they sit those same assessments, they will tell us whether we kept our promise.
That is the measure of our success. If we truly put children first, we can change the trajectory of South Africa, one child at a time, by giving every child a strong foundation for a strong future. That is Bana Pele.
©Higher Education Media Services.