CAPE TOWN – As schools prepare to close for the festive season, Ikamva Labantu – meaning “The Future of the People” – is urging South Africans to invest in the very start of a child’s educational journey — Early Childhood Development (ECD).
Research shows that the first five years of a child’s life shape their future learning, behaviour and health. Yet for many young children living in low-income communities, access to quality early learning remains out of reach. An estimated 350 000 four-year-olds – roughly 29% of children in that age group – receive no early learning at all. While around 71% of South African 4-year-olds do attend an early learning centre, too many are placed in environments without educational resources and with untrained teachers. This is especially common in township communities, where parents travel long distances to work and rarely have the income to afford a quality preschool.
Lifelong impact
For the child the impact is lifelong. This also impacts on the future of South Africa. Children who miss out on proper foundational development are less likely to transition successfully through school, more likely to repeat grades, and more likely to fall into intergenerational cycles of poverty and exclusion.
To address this, Cape Town non-governmental organisation, Ikamva Labantu has pioneered a practical, scalable model that improves quality at the source. The organisation’s experiential training programme equips ECD principals and teachers through hands-on learning at Ikamva Labantu’s model preschool. Trained community-based workers also support ECD professionals within their own classrooms to ensure the unique challenges they face in their township preschools are addressed with tailored solutions. Graduates are then supported through an ECD registration helpdesk, guiding them to meet compliance standards, and access government subsidies essential to ensure their preschool’s sustainability.
A child’s opportunity for education should never depend on luck or chance. Every child deserves a path – and someone to help them believe they can take it.
Ishrene Davids, Ikamva Labantu’s director, personally understands the impact that a well-trained ECD educator can have in a child’s life. Raised on the Cape Flats, after her family was forcibly removed during Apartheid, she grew up in a two-bedroom home with 11 siblings. Her father worked as a cleaner. She remembers her mother trying to cut a single apple into 12 pieces.
Davids had two forces that changed her life. Her dad, whose work ethic and consistent presence remains a guiding value in her life, and her teachers. She overheard her teachers speaking about her ability to anticipate the next word when she reads. This comment from her perceptive teacher early on in life, shifted her perception of herself and her capabilities. She understood she might have a future. Davids is the only sibling to have completed schooling and university.
“A child’s opportunity for education should never depend on luck or chance. Every child deserves a path – and someone to help them believe they can take it,” she says. “It takes a village to raise a child, and we are asking South Africans to join us in investing in a future where all children flourish.”
Children truly are the future. By investing in early childhood development for children who need it most, it builds future leaders, entrepreneurs and thought leaders. Ikamva Labantu is calling on South Africans, to give a gift that supports a child’s future this festive season. Give them access to quality preschool education today: Ikamva.org.za/donate
