There is a lack of data in the ECD sector in South Africa, this leads to many assumptions of what ECD services exist in communities.
At NAG, these are three key questions that we need answers to in order to plan appropriate interventions to ensure a fair start in life for all children.
- What ECD services exist in marginalized communities?
- How many children are attending those services?
- What the reasons are for children not attending ECD services?
We are proud to say that we have answers for the first two questions on this list for UGU, our home district where we research and develop scalable systems to improve ECD. Our team used every spare minute of this year profiling all ECD services in marginalized communities in UGU district. Here are some of our findings.
424 ECD Centres profiled within the UGU region in 2019
Network Action Group
In total 12399 children attend 318 subsidised ECD centres and 2466 children attend 106 non-subsidised ECD centres. NAG’s partnership with UGU DSD and Environmental Health on ECD registration over the last 5 years has enabled the highest percentage of government subsidized ECD services of any district in the country. DSD funded ECD centres are subsidised for approximately 55% of the children that actually attend. This is because of government’s lack of budget to subsidise all the children that are in ECD Centres and means their commitment to pay R15 per child per day is essentially watered down to around R8 per child per day.
Parents Fee’s in UGU ECD centres range from R10 per month to over R200 per month with the average being around R60 per month. On average across the approximately 1200 ECD practitioners in the district they earn R996 per month.
Children that attend subsidised ECD centres are served lunch every day. There are only 12 non-subsidised ECD centres that serve lunch. NAG’s partnership with Zero2Five has made a huge impact by providing a highly nutritious breakfast for these non-subsidised centres. Click here for more statistics
