Renewal and Reform: Special Issue on ‘Realising the Rights of Children to Quality Early Childhood Development in South Africa’

Abstract

Access to holistic, quality early childhood development (ECD) services is needed to support the health, nutrition and early learning needs of young children. While South Africa has made some advances in increasing access to ECD services for children in the democratic era, significant gaps and challenges remain. Almost twothirds of young children live below the poverty line, a majority of the country’s poorest children do not meet learning and physical expectations for their age, and the position of children with disabilities is even more dire. The devastating impact of the Covid-19 pandemic brought systemic failures in this sector into stark focus and has prompted developing research and jurisprudence on the right to ECD services. At the same time, the regulation of this critical sector is in a state of flux. In 2019, President Cyril Ramaphosa announced that two years of compulsory pre-school would be introduced for children before Grade 1. In a dramatic shift, the President also initiated a migration of key responsibilities relating to ECD