OPINION | Born Unequal: How South Africa’s ECD system reinforces class divides

As South Africa prepares for a new academic year in its basic education system, familiar debates once again take centre stage, ranging from access to education, school readiness, and persistent infrastructure backlogs. This year, however, society’s attention must turn more deliberately to early childhood development (ECD) as a core basic education competence, and to recognising that it is not merely a care sector but an economy. It is an essential pillar of social and economic development.

Although the sector now falls under the Department of Basic Education, it still lacks a clear, enforceable legislative framework that guarantees universal access to quality early learning. The result is a fragmented system in which access to early education is shaped less by need than by class, geography, and household income.

Yet amid these recurring concerns, early childhood development (ECD) continues to receive insufficient attention, despite its central role in shaping educational outcomes and long-term social mobility.

This gap is frequently framed as a problem affecting only the poorest households. A closer examination reveals a far more complex system shaped by class divisions, the persistent undervaluing of care work, limited access to land for developmental infrastructure, and an exploitative vacuum created by a government that has failed to fully exercise its mandate.

Across classes and communities, access to ECD is mediated by competing household priorities, where meeting one basic need often comes at the expense of another. In low-income areas such as Mamelodi, families may be forced to choose between feeding the family and enrolling childred in early learning programmes. Meanwhile, in middle-income urban areas like Midrand, many households – often headed by young Black women—face average monthly rents exceeding R5,000, alongside ECD fees that can reach R4,000 per child.

In both contexts, the absence of a universal, publicly funded and subsidised ECD system turns early learning into a private financial burden. This exposes how deeply inequality is embedded in South Africa’s approach to education – reproducing class divisions before children even enter formal schooling.

These tensions are not abstract, as they are lived realities shaping the country’s current ECD landscape. For the poorest households, the struggle is one of survival. Families are forced to choose between food and education because quality ECD is simply unaffordable. Although the state subsidy increased to R24 per child per day in 2025, this remains far below the estimated R36 to R48 required to provide basic quality care. As a result, many centres remain underfunded, overcrowded, and unable to meet minimum developmental standards.

This crisis is compounded by broader socio-economic pressures. An estimated 38.5% of children under six live below the food poverty line, placing them at risk of both malnutrition and delayed cognitive development. Nearly half of children in the poorest households face stunting, undermining their ability to acquire foundational learning skills long before they reach Grade R.

Infrastructure barriers further entrench exclusion. Many ECD centres in poor communities operate from informal structures that cannot meet registration requirements, leaving them ineligible for subsidies and shifting costs back onto families least able to absorb them.

For the middle class households, the challenge is different but no less structural. Limited public investment in ECD and schooling, particularly in fast-growing provinces like Gauteng – has forced families into an expensive and largely unregulated private market. Households earning just above the subsidy threshold of R9,000 per month are excluded from government support and must contend with annual fee increases of between 6% and 10%,  even as wages stagnate and living costs rise.

In the absence of viable public alternatives, the private sector is able to exploit this gap, prioritising profit under the guise of offering “competitive” education. The result is a deeply unequal, two-tier ECD system, where access to quality early learning is rationed by income, reinforcing broader social and economic fractures.

All of this unfolds against a backdrop of persistent political and policy neglect that continues to undermine early childhood development in South Africa, with devastating consequences for millions of children and for the country’s long-term human capital, productivity, and innovation. Despite overwhelming evidence that early learning is foundational to human development, less than 1% of the national education budget is allocated to ECD, a situation scholars have described as structurally damaging.

The sector remains a largely private, quasi-market system, with government effectively ceding leadership and allowing early education to be commodified rather than guided toward social equity.

If left unaddressed, this status quo will only deepen generational inequality, particularly as government continues to overlook the care and social development economy as a driver of inclusive growth. If properly supported, the ECD sector has the potential to advance women’s economic participation and entrepreneurship, while providing a public system of care that inspires confidence in social welfare rather than profit extraction.

Strengthening oversight and policy implementation is therefore critical. This includes addressing structural barries such as access to land, without which communities cannot build schools, crèches, or safe play spaces. Subsequently without equitable access to education infrastructure, land cannot translate into innovation or inclusive economic growth.

In the City of Tshwane, for example, a review of the Town Planning Scheme (2008, revised 2014) has revealed that many communities face prohibitive costs in establishing ECD centres due to complex consent-use applications and development charges. In response, the ANC–EFF–ActionSA coalition government has moved toward waiving development contributions and simplifying land-use consent processes for ECD establishments in townships, rural areas, and former homelands.

This marks an important step in ensuring that land serves the purpose of human development rather than exclusion. However, such policy shifts must be matched with sustained political commitment—one that not only follows through on policy shifts but actively builds a universal, publicly supported ECD system that affirms every child’s right to an equal start in life.

Written by: Lesego Mahlangu, researcher at the City of Tshwane.

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