School feeding scheme benefits nine million children

About 11m children are benefitting from the government's school feeding scheme. Image: Longevity Live

Releasing the 20 Year Review: South Africa 1994 to 2014 in Pretoria, Zuma said over eight million school children were now benefitting from no-fee policies.

South Africa has, over the last two decades, made a substantial investment in Early Childhood Development (ECD), a critical phase in the academic development of all children.

The 20 Year Review says public expenditure on ECD has increased fourfold in real terms since 2006 and the number of children aged 0-4 years attending ECD facilities is increasing.

Grade R enrolment has doubled, increasing from 300,000 to 705,000 between 2003 and 2011 and nearly reaching universal access. As at 2012, 87.8% of learners in Grade 1 in public schools had attended Grade R.

However, the Review notes that the quality of ECD needs to be improved at all levels and very small number of children aged between 0-2 years-old are in formal early child care and education centres.

Improving policy

Multi-sectoral co-ordination is also being strengthened to ensure that a more comprehensive set of services such as nutrition and food security, antenatal and post-natal care and home-based and community-based ECD programmes are offered, with greater focus on improving access for poor children.

Zuma says a significant development in this area was the National Integrated Plan (NIP) (2005-2010), which set a target to provide services to one million children in the initial phase, and five million children by 2010.

The NIP expands services beyond centre-based care and includes home-based care and community childcare centres. However, the NIP did not meet its targets and is currently under review.

While the NIP has proposed different forms of care provision, the focus has been on centre-base care. This is largely due to the current service delivery model, where a non-profit organisation with a constitution must be set up, according to a set of norms and standards.

Another significant intervention was the Expanded Public Works Programme (EPWP), which brought additional resources with a focus on training ECD practitioners.

The Department of Performance Monitoring and Evaluation undertook a diagnostic review in 2011, which points to some progress since 1994. However, significant challenges remain, including that only 20% of poor children have access to an ECD facility.

Improved access to ECD

Grade-R is important in terms of early childhood development. Image: Yellowwood Schools

In the period between 1994 and 2011, there has been a significant increase in access to centre-based care, albeit from a low base.

It is estimated that over a million children aged 0-4 are in an ECD facility or some form of out-of-home care. Of these 467,000 receive means-tested subsidies in 18,826 registered centres.

While there has been a marked increase in access over time - with the percentage of children attending an ECD service in 2011 almost double that for 1995, this is from a low base.

"What is of concern is that Gauteng and Western Cape have the lowest child share of the provincial population - 46% and 43% respectively; while KwaZulu-Natal, with one of the largest shares of the provincial child population, only has 29% of children accessing any form of ECD," says the Review.

The numbers reflect increased access for the younger age group, but this is largely driven by Grade R.

There has been marked improvement in attendance for all four population groups. In both 1995 and 2011, African children were recorded as having a higher rate of attendance than coloured or Indian children. However, white children have the highest rate of attendance, which reflects historical patterns of inequity.

With regard to spatial patterns, access to ECD service has improved in both urban and rural areas.

In 1995, the rate of attendance was 29% in urban areas compared to 18% in rural areas. By 2011, the recorded rates for children under six years were 44% and 37% respectively.

The gap between urban and rural thus reduced substantially over the period, according to the Review.