ECD centres face debt and food shortages as WCED cites national funding rules

Children are taking Watch Play Learn’s songs and activities home, while practitioners report improved confidence and communication.

South African early childhood development (ECD) centres in vulnerable areas face mounting debt and food rationing due to state subsidies staying well below operational costs.

While civil society demands provincial action after the Medium-Term Budget Policy Statement (MTBPS), the Western Cape Education Department (WCED) states national funding frameworks restrict its options.

Since ECD management moved from Social Development to Basic Education, advocacy groups like Real Reform for ECD (RR4ECD) have urged reform.

They stress that the R24 daily per-child subsidy for centres (and R13 for non-centre programmes) fails to meet real-world costs, which require roughly R45. Despite these pressures, the WCED maintains that any subsidy increases remain bound to national frameworks.

RR4ECD demands increasing the per child subsidy from R24 to R45 to cover essential costs. However, WCED spokesperson Bronagh Hammond said that the province cannot supplement this using provincial reserves, as adjustments remain strictly bound to the national ECD framework.

"The Western Cape Education Department is guided by the national ECD subsidy framework, which determines any adjustment to the per-child subsidy rate," Hammond said. "Any increase to these subsidy rates would therefore be determined in accordance with the national subsidy framework."

For centres on the ground, however, waiting on national adjustments has meant cutbacks. Clayton Morar, speaking on behalf of RR4ECD, cautioned that centres in marginalised communities cannot simply absorb the shortfall.

"ECD centres in vulnerable communities are simply forced to make do with less, placing pressure on their ability to provide children with adequate nutrition, pay staff salaries at or above minimum wage, and afford other consumables required for their daily running expenses," Morar said.

"Where possible, some centres can rely on donations, community support, and fees to alleviate the financial pressure, but it is understandably harder for centres in more vulnerable communities to raise such support. In some instances, centres are forced into debt to keep their doors open," he added.

Social safety net gaps worsen this financial strain. With the Child Support Grant (CSG) at R580 monthly against an R868 food poverty line, impoverished households face severe nutritional deficits.

National Treasury has linked mid-term savings in grant spending to declining birth rates. Morar contested this premise, pointing instead to administrative purges within the South African Social Security Agency (SASSA).

"A declining birth rate may contribute to fewer children requiring CSGs, but the decline in the birth rate is relatively minor at 1.34% from 2025, in keeping with the last three years," Morar explained. "Instead, SASSA's current practice of reviewing and suspending CSG and other social grants is likely to largely explain the medium-term savings."

Morar noted that more than 100,000 grant beneficiaries have been subjected to review, suspension, or cancellation—often without timely notification.

The cancellations have disproportionately impacted "Quad 7" beneficiaries, a vulnerable demographic already wrestling with birth registration bottlenecks at the Department of Home Affairs.

Compounding access problems is the reality that state subsidies require formal ECD registration, a hurdle that excludes informal creches that need support most.

Hammond countered that the WCED is actively working to dismantle registration roadblocks across districts:

"Registration clinics are held across districts in partnership with municipal officials and social sector organisations, providing ECD providers with practical support to meet registration requirements,"

Hammond noted, citing province-wide engagements, ECD forum partnerships, and ongoing training under the Mass Registration Drive Framework.

Morar supported the continuation of registration drives—such as the national Bana Pele initiative—as a key tool to help the more than 90% of female ECD practitioners currently earning below the national minimum wage.

However, he urged education authorities to adapt bureaucratic requirements so they do not inadvertently punish under-resourced operators.

While school-age learners receive dedicated meals via the National School Nutrition Programme (NSNP), preschool facilities do not qualify.

"ECD facilities do not form part of the National School Nutrition Programme (NSNP), in accordance with national policy," Hammond clarified.

"Subsidised ECD facilities may allocate 40% of their total subsidy towards nutrition, helping to ensure that children receiving subsidised ECD services benefit from appropriate nutritional support," he said.

Yet this policy leaves unregistered sites—which look after thousands of children in informal settlements—without regular feeding support.

Nationally, efforts to address early childhood hunger through dedicated pilot programmes have stumbled.

With R743 million allocated over the medium term for the Department of Basic Education's (DBE) ECD nutrition pilot, rollout tenders have stalled, most notably in the Eastern Cape, where procurement has been hit by repeated delays.

Morar attributed these failures to internal procurement deficiencies and a "seeming political deprioritisation," calling on Parliament’s Basic Education Portfolio Committee and civil society to enforce accountability under the Public Finance Management Act (PFMA).

"The need the ECD nutrition pilot sought to meet still exists," Morar stressed. "Any attempts to motivate for the return of unspent funds or permission to retain unspent funds will require the department to clearly demonstrate that the unspent funds will be spent within the ECD nutrition pilot."

The WCED insists its broader strategy is focused on integrating 3-to-5-year-olds into a unified educational continuum.

Hammond highlighted that early childhood programmes in the province are mapped directly to the National Curriculum Framework (NCF) and aligned with Grade R Curriculum and Assessment Policy Statement (CAPS) standards, supported by targeted interventions like Step Up and Blocks for Growth for children facing barriers to learning.

Whether curriculum alignment can bridge underfunded classroom gaps remains uncertain, as civil society coalitions argue pedagogical frameworks matter little if frontline centres cannot cover operating costs, feed learners, or pay fair wages.