Inter Press Service - September 17, 2004
Christina Scott

Yet, a decade after the advent of democracy, South Africa appears to spend more on keeping convicted criminals in their cells than on keeping children off the streets and in preschool. This is despite the fact that research suggests investing in the latter is a surprisingly good way to prevent the former.

Prisoners cost the South African taxpayer about 17 dollars a day, every day of the year. In contrast, babies and toddlers who attend formally-registered preschools get a direct subsidy from the Department of Social Development which averages out at just under 70 cents for every one of the country's 195 school days.

Depending on which of South Africa's nine provinces is administering the grant, some children get as little as 37 cents - others up to 92 cents. Regardless, teachers are hard-pressed to buy as much as a cup of coffee - let alone a nutritious meal - for a hungry boy or girl with the subsidy money.

At most, only 17 out of every hundred young children in the country have access to any kind of crèche, as the preschools are commonly referred to.

Pam Picken of the non-governmental organisation (NGO) Training and Resources in Early Education (TREE), based in the port city of Durban, reels out more grim statistics.

"Access to early childhood programmes has clearly demonstrated an improvement in school performance, yet the Department of Education spends less than one percent of its budget on early childhood education," she says.

"Only 43 of every 100 (black South African) children who start school actually reach matric. Forty percent of South Africa's children never obtain even basic literacy and numeracy," Picken adds.

These figures also reflect the enduring legacy of the country's apartheid system of government, which made minimal investments in education for blacks.

The famous High Scope study performed in the United States is still tracking adults, now in their thirties, who benefited from preschools. The children seldom repeated grades, hardly needed remedial attention and almost always finished school.

They were less likely to turn to juvenile crime, and on exiting the school system more likely to get a job.

In addition, girls were less likely to fall pregnant - a significant plus for South Africa, where one out of every eight young women drops out of school due to impending parenthood. The study concluded that for every dollar invested in early childhood education, more than seven times that was saved.

Of course, the American study had a ratio of one adult to every six children in preschools - while in rural South Africa, it is likely to be one adult to every sixty children.

Under the High Scope initiative, parents were also required to participate in preprimary training and activities. In South Africa close to half of all black households lack fathers, while twenty out of 100 children do not live with their mother.

However, other research - a 20-year-old study in Cape Town's overcrowded Athlone township, one of the city's poorer areas - and another study in 1998 in rural Viljoenskroon in the Free State province, also found significant advantages to preschooling.

Nearly a quarter of children under the age of five are stunted due to long-term malnutrition. Even though funding can prove problematic, preschools offer critically-needed food, safety and mental stimulation that can seldom be provided by overworked, under-equipped and ill-educated caregivers at home.

"We recognise that we haven't done enough in terms of our investment," says Marie-Louise Samuels, director of the Education Department's early childhood development section. "But it skews the argument to say that we are only spending a certain percentage of the budget on early childhood education, because the situation is complex."

Samuels says that funds from the Departments of Health and Social Development supplement allocations from the Education Department, while local government also supports preschoolers.

She adds that government plans to ensure that the poorest of the poor in South Africa receive preprimary education by 2010 - something that may include subsidies for private preschools which take in impoverished children.

"We are aiming to achieve full coverage for children in the age group of four-turning-five, before they enter school," Samuels says. "And in the year before that, we want to reach seventy percent of the children, which is about four million preschoolers."

Others also take a more hopeful view of the situation.

Eric Atmore of the Centre for Early Childhood Development, an NGO headquartered in Cape Town, insists that the ills which affect preschooling are more the result of a "crisis of leadership", than a funding crunch.

"There are major programmes up and running that weren't there before," he adds - but admits that few of his colleagues share this optimism.

These programmes include the use of about 1.5 million dollars from the new mandatory skills development levy imposed on businesses, to train preprimary teachers. The national lottery has allocated almost 2.3 million dollars a year for early childhood education.

IBM and other companies are also investing in the sector, while the Public Works Department effort has allocated four percent of its funds to providing care for people infected with HIV, and preschoolers.

Finally, the national treasury in 2001 issued a grant for children in grade R (the year of schooling that children can undergo before entering the formal education system). The grant came to an end this year; however, it is hoped that provincial governments will find money in their own budgets to pay for projects established by virtue of the treasury funds.

However, Atmore also notes that certain groups involved in early childhood development have experienced difficulties in adjusting to changes in the administration of international aid.

In the apartheid era, money for programmes that targeted South Africa's disadvantaged black children was freely available. Now, says Atmore, "Funders are demanding more impact."

"They are assessing more rigorously. Many are funding fewer projects, with more money, and for longer periods."

About five years ago, 120 organisations which trained and supported early childhood teachers existed. Now there are 77.

"Maybe 20 haven't got funding for the next six months. Maybe 50 have enough money to last a year," predicts Atmore. "In the next six months, two or three more will close down."

The urgency of setting up comprehensive, sustainable preschooling in South Africa becomes all the more evident when one considers the ramifications of the AIDS pandemic. (The Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS puts HIV prevalence in the country at about 20 percent.)

In the KwaZulu-Natal province, the region worst affected by HIV, hundreds of thousands of children have been orphaned by the disease and are living on their own or with equally poor neighbours or relatives.

Yet, "Community caregivers are finding a lot of difficulty in absorbing children into their homes because of the level of poverty and the level of need," says Jane Kvalsvig, a senior researcher at the Pretoria-based Human Sciences Research Council who has just done a study on orphans in a rural community in KwaZulu-Natal.

"We found malnutrition, abuse, severe speech impediments that weren't being dealt with, elderly caregivers who were too old and too sick to look after so many children - and family relations who took the foster care grants for themselves."

In this context, preschool education provides an ideal way of helping to reduce the impact of AIDS on children.

A new policy, currently awaiting approval from the Ministry of Education, is looking at combining social and health services with education for very poor children, particularly those in rural areas. This will last from preschool years until the children's entry into the formal education system.

The idea is not to dot the countryside with early learning centers, forcing children to walk long distances or take buses that might make them vulnerable to attack. Instead, parent training for home-based programmes is envisaged, "so you are trying to introduce new ideas about stimulation and nutrition into the home," says Kvalsvig.

Reports from across Southern Africa indicate that parents are taking their children out of primary and high school as the financial impact of AIDS hits home. In light of this, funds for preschools are likely to be at the bottom of a family's priorities.

"As long as community-based preschools are dependent on fees, they cannot reach the poorest of the poor and will never reach them," says Picken. "It is absolutely critical that the government gives these centers resources."

Perhaps if South Africa's toddlers knew how to march in protests and utter sound bites, they would join the ranks of those who regularly occupy the front pages of newspapers. In many ways, however, these children are invisible citizens.

Perhaps more decision makers should be taking that Jesuit saying to heart.

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