Classrooms must come first: Fixing the policy gap in SA’s ECD strategy

Image source: Freepik

We welcome it. And then we have to ask the harder question.

Where, exactly, are 300,000 more children going to learn?

South Africa currently has approximately 42,420 registered ECD centres. Many of them operate from structures that were never intended to be classrooms; unsafe shack structures without proper ventilation, lighting or fireproofing, informal rooms shared by toddlers and four-year-olds because there are no separate spaces, kitchens that double as bathrooms, sanitation facilities that do not meet basic health standards.

The 2030 ECD Strategy is clear on the shortfall: the country needs an estimated 115,000 additional ECD venues to achieve population coverage. The Budget does not allocate a single rand specifically toward building them.

This is the structural gap that sits behind the headline number, and it matters more than it might appear.

The R12.8bn flows through the ECD conditional grant to provinces. It increases the per-child subsidy. But the subsidy is only paid in respect of children attending registered, or partially registered, centres. And registration requires infrastructure, safe classrooms, a separate kitchen area, compliant sanitation, an outdoor learning space.

Without those facilities in place, a centre cannot register. Without registration, it cannot access the subsidy. The expanded allocation will simply go unspent in the communities that need it most, not because the demand isn't there, but because the physical spaces don't exist.

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Infrastructure is not a secondary concern

The Thrive by Five Index put this in sharp relief. Only 46% of four-year-olds in early learning programmes are developmentally on track. Children in the lowest-quality infrastructure settings are approximately 2.4 times less likely to be on track than those in better-resourced facilities.

Infrastructure is not a secondary concern to programme quality. For young children, the two are inseparable.

Breadline Africa submitted detailed commentary to both the Standing Committee on Finance and the Standing Committee on Appropriations, first on the 2026 National Budget, and again last week on the Division of Revenue Bill. The same gap runs through both.

The Budget Facility for Infrastructure, opened for the 2026/27 call for proposals, was presented as a mechanism for unlocking funding for critical social infrastructure.

The Minister cited courts, correctional facilities, police stations and health care facilities as qualifying examples. ECD infrastructure was not mentioned.

We have asked Parliament to recommend that Treasury make the inclusion explicit. A programmatic submission bundling multiple ECD facilities across a province is more efficient and more investable than applying site by site.

Division of revenue

The Division of Revenue Bill is where the problem becomes structural. Under Schedule 4A, provincial education infrastructure grants apply to schools, not ECD centres. Under Schedule 5A, the existing ECD Grant covers subsidies and registration support, not construction.

Municipal allocations for water, sanitation, electrification and roads do not extend to ECD facility development.

Provinces cannot legally redirect existing grants toward ECD buildings, even where the need is obvious and the land is available. And crucially, there is no maintenance provision at all, despite the fact that a facility that isn't maintained deteriorates into non-compliance.

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Potential is there

The mechanisms to fix this already exist within the Bill. A dedicated ECD Infrastructure Capital Grant under Schedule 5A would mirror what already exists for education, health and water infrastructure. A capital component could be added to the existing ECD Grant without rewriting the legislation.

Schedule 6 indirect allocations would allow national departments to deliver standardised ECD facilities on behalf of provinces and municipalities, at scale, through accredited implementing partners.

These are not new ideas requiring years of policy development. They are adjustments to existing frameworks that Parliament and Treasury can make now.

There is also a local government dimension that the Budget's own performance-linked reforms risk making worse, not better.

The reforms rightly tighten the link between revenue generation and service delivery. But municipalities that currently use collected funds to support ECD centre upgrades will be penalised under the new model if ECD is not recognised as a funded mandate.

The White Paper on Local Government should define ECD infrastructure as a constitutional function at municipal level, and Treasury should allocate conditional funds to match.

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Connecting money to mandate

None of this requires the government to spend more than it has already committed to spending. The R1tn infrastructure envelope is real. The mechanisms in the Division of Revenue Bill are real.

The private sector appetite, through IPP Community Trusts, B-BBEE Enterprise and Supplier Development programmes, and the R496m ECCE Outcomes Fund, is real and largely untapped. What is missing is the policy coordination that connects the money to the mandate.

South Africa has approximately 600,000 three- and four-year-olds who need ECD access but do not have it. The R12.8bn, if the infrastructure exists to absorb it, could reach many of them. If it doesn't, the money will sit in provincial accounts while those children wait.

We have told Parliament what needs to change. The opportunity to act is now, in this Budget cycle, with the instruments already in hand.

Until we address the infrastructure gap, funding alone will not change outcomes. The classrooms must come first. Because behind every allocation is a child still waiting for a place to learn.