Sixty-five percent of four- to five-year-old children attending Early Learning Programmes (ELPs) in South Africa do not thrive, according to Friday’s Thrive by Five Index – a new index that addresses the root causes of socio-economic disparity in South Africa.
The index found that children were not meeting the expected early learning and/or physical growth standards for their age and would start Grade R at a considerable disadvantage, with possible long term implications for their education.
Former executive director of Innovation Edge and Project Lead for the Thrive by Five Index Sonja Giese said South Africa would not realise its development goals of eliminating income poverty and reducing inequality, without addressing the significant challenges that young children faced in their earliest years.
“We have to tackle the injustice of unequal opportunities in early childhood,” Giese said.
This index that was initiated by First National Bank (FNB) and Innovation Edge, in collaboration with the Department of Basic Education (DBE).
This was South Africa’s largest ever survey of preschool child development. It was also supported by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and ECD Measure.
The Thrive by Five Index assessed more than 5 000 children aged 4 to 5 years enrolled in various types of Early Learning Programmes (ELPs) around the country. Children were assessed in three areas that are known to be predictive of a child’s performance in school, that is, early learning, physical growth, and social emotional functioning.
Learning tasks that were assessed fell into five groups of gross motor skills, fine motor skills, early literacy, early mathematics, and executive functioning, which was the child’s ability to solve problems and pay attention.
Less than half of four- to five-year-olds are on track for learning as the Index reports that 55 percent of children attending ELPs were not able to do the learning tasks expected of children their age, with 28 percent of children falling far behind the expected standard.
Children’s physical growth which was measured as their expected height for their age and social emotional functioning were also assessed. Both of these were important measures because they influenced a child's ability to succeed at school and beyond.
One in four children (25.1 percent) showed signs of long-term malnutrition, which presented itself as stunted physical growth. Stunted children on average performed worse at school than their non-stunted counterparts, and were more likely to be unemployed as adults. They were also at higher risk of getting diseases like diabetes and hypertension and are vulnerable to being trapped in intergenerational cycles of poverty.
For social emotional functioning, the Index found that 27.5 percent of children did not meet the standard when it came to age-appropriate social relations with peers and adults, while 33.4 percent were found to not be emotionally ready for school.
The Index found that children from poor households were disadvantaged before formal schooling started. While there were instances of considerable variation in performance within income groups, on average children from poorer households were falling behind their better off peers as a result of the challenges they faced in their earliest years.
The Thrive by Five Index partnership has called for urgent collective action to decrease the performance gap between young children in the richest and poorest households at the point of entry into school; and to increase the percentage of young children in South Africa who thrive by five, setting more children up for success.
Basic Education Minister Angie Motshekga said the Thrive by Five Index had truly thrown into sharp focus the importance of the work of ECD in moulding and shaping the nation’s future leaders.
“Moreover, the index will enable the DBE to track progress in providing integrated services that lead to improved child outcomes over the next 10 years,” Motshekga said.
FNB chief executive Jacques Celliers said FNB was proud to have collaborated with the private and public sectors to launch the Thrive by Five Index, which aimed to promote positive impact in the early childhood development ecosystem, which they continued to support and invest in.
“The value of this Index is that it allows us as a collective to provide optimal support to our children as they progress from grassroots to greatness. Thrive by Five's actionable insights will influence targeted interventions that will result in quantitative and qualitative outcomes. As a result, it is incumbent on all stakeholders to ensure measurable progress in the coming years," Celliers said.
USAID Mission Director Andy Karas said that the US government, through USAID and their partners Innovation Edge and FNB, had a shared vision with the government of South Africa to address the root causes of socio-economic disparity.
“That vision starts with the education of young people – the youngest in this case. Thrive by Five’s data will provide a framework for the Department of Basic Education to help the next generation of South Africans to thrive in a just and equal society,” Karas said.
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