Project report
A Sector Hanging in the Balance: Early Childhood Development and Lockdown in South Africa
Gabrielle Wills, Janeli Kotzé, Jesal Kika-Mistry ·
Summary
Written by AI, not yet AICS's view · claude-sonnet-5This report looks at how South Africa's early childhood development (ECD) programmes were affected by COVID-19 lockdowns. Using survey data, it finds that attendance at ECD programmes for children aged 0-6 dropped sharply compared to before the pandemic. The decline is linked to the costs of reopening safely, reduced household incomes, and parents' fears about their children catching COVID-19. The report warns this could have lasting effects on children, families, and the many adults who work in the ECD sector, and calls for government action.
Key points
- Only 12 percent of children who attended ECD programmes before lockdown had returned by mid-July, even though programmes were allowed to reopen.
- An estimated 13 percent of children aged 0-6 were attending ECD programmes by mid-July to mid-August, compared to 47 percent in 2018.
- This is the lowest ECD attendance rate seen since the early 2000s.
- The contraction is driven by prohibitive reopening costs, reduced household incomes, and parental fears of COVID-19 infection.
- It is unclear whether the decline in enrolment will be temporary or have lasting effects on the sector.
Limitations
The report is based on survey estimates and does not yet know whether the drop in attendance will be temporary or permanent, and it does not evaluate any specific intervention.
Abstract
New evidence suggests that over four months after the closure of early childhood development (ECD) programmes on 18 March 2020, the ECD sector was likely to be operating at less than a quarter of its pre-lockdown levels. Of the 38 percent of respondents from the new NIDS-CRAM survey reporting that children aged 0-6 in their households had attended ECD programmes before the lockdown in March, only 12 percent indicated that children had returned to these programmes by mid-July, well after programmes were allowed to reopen. Using these findings, we estimate that just 13 percent of children aged 0-6 were attending ECD programmes by mid-July to mid-August compared to 47 percent in 2018. The last time that ECD attendance rates were as low as this was in the early 2000s. At this point it is not yet clear what proportion of these declines are only temporary, or whether there will be a lasting impact on ECD enrolment in the country. This dramatic contraction in the ECD sector relates to prohibitive costs to reopening ‘safely’ imposed by the regulatory environment, coupled with shocks to the demand side for ECD programmes (both in terms of reduced household incomes and parent fears of children contracting COVID-19). When viewed from a broader socio-economic lens, the threat of ECD programme closures across the nation will have impacts beyond ECD operators to the lives of millions of children, millions of households and millions of adults who rely on these ECD services. A swift intervention by government is necessary to save this important sector and limit the ripple effect of programme closures on multiple layers of society.