ECD subsidy reaches 954,000 children, but one million remain outside early learning

South Africa has expanded its early childhood development subsidy and accelerated programme approvals, but the government still faces a one-million-child gap before its 2030 target.

South Africa is widening its early childhood development subsidy and pressing ahead with a broader push to bring more children into formal early learning, but government figures still show a large shortfall between current enrolment and the national target.

Basic Education Minister Siviwe Gwarube said at the Bana Pele Leadership Summit in Sandton that more children are now in quality early learning programmes than at any other point in South Africa’s history. She said the state had added access to the subsidy for another 200,000 children over the past two years, taking the total number of subsidised children to more than 954,000.

Even so, the minister said there were still around 1.2 million children aged three to five in early learning, leaving roughly another one million without access to any ECD programme. That gap, she said, remained too wide to treat as acceptable if South Africa is to meet the goals set out in the Bana Pele Shared Blueprint for 2030.

The latest government briefing shows how quickly the programme has grown, but also how much remains to be done. The subsidy, which now stands at R24 per child a day, has risen from R17 in earlier years, while the budget has expanded from R3.43-billion in 2024/25 to R6.49-billion in the current financial year and is projected to reach R9.1-billion by 2028/29. Business Day reported in February that the National Treasury had set aside an additional R12.8-billion over three years for early childhood development, with the broader allocation expected to lift services for another 300,000 children.

Government data released around the summit also suggests progress on registration and compliance. Gwarube said 1,343 programmes had secured silver or gold approval by the end of September, the stages that allow providers to access the subsidy once they have met partial or full regulatory requirements. She said September saw daily approvals rise to about 25 to 30, roughly double the earlier pace.

The expansion has been accompanied by persistent delivery problems in some provinces. In KwaZulu-Natal, the High Court in Pietermaritzburg ordered the provincial education department in June to pay outstanding subsidies after repeated complaints from early learning centres about late or missing payments. Gwarube said the subsidy is a conditional grant and should, in principle, reach every eligible child without interruption.

The summit also highlighted the fact that early childhood development now sits across several parts of government rather than within one department alone. Health Minister Aaron Motsoaledi and Deputy Minister of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs Namane Masemola took part in the discussions, while the South African Local Government Association signed on to support the blueprint. Early learning registration efforts now involve all eight metros and 44 district municipalities, covering the country’s full network of 257 municipalities, according to the department.

Alongside government structures, the campaign is increasingly relying on civil society and local outreach. More than 75 non-governmental and social service organisations are helping with registration, five Bana Pele community hubs are being piloted, and joint drives with the South African Social Security Agency and the Department of Home Affairs are linking birth registration with early learning sign-ups. Practitioners at the summit said the approach offered hope, particularly where it simplifies the process for centres that have struggled with paperwork and compliance demands.

President Cyril Ramaphosa used the summit to argue that early childhood development is not just a social policy issue but an economic one. He said new technologies such as artificial intelligence and automation would reshape the world children grow up in, but that they would still need the basics of reading, writing, counting and problem-solving. He called on companies to treat ECD as a serious part of their social investment and long-term growth strategy.

With four years left before the 2030 deadline, Gwarube said the government must keep moving aggressively if it is to close the remaining gap. She said the department was still building some of the systems needed to accelerate access, but argued that the reforms already under way should begin to gather pace. Some practitioners welcomed that ambition, while also warning that the success of the programme will depend on how directly government listens to early learning centres on the ground.