Data shows the pandemic’s lingering effect on the early childhood development sector. Picture: Jason Boud
Cape Town - With research demonstrating that the most significant learning and brain growth occurred in children by the age of six, the pandemic reportedly had a detrimental influence on the early childhood development (ECD) sector.
This comes after data released by StatsSA's General Household Survey revealed that the percentage of children in the 0-4 years age group that remained at home with a parent or guardian increased from 57.8% in 2019 to 64.6% in 2021, while the percentage of children that attended Grade R, pre-school, nursery school, crèche, and edu-care centres decreased from 36.8% in 2019 to 28.5% in 2021.
As the pandemic left many children emotionally, and mentally isolated, director of the Centre for Early Childhood Development, Eric Atmore, said the data presented by StatsSA should be a cause of concern because these children had lost out on significant early learning opportunities and experiences that they would have needed to carry over into formal schooling.
“Being out of an early learning programme for a significant period will present major challenges. These challenges include the developmental lag as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic and subsequent lockdown. For vulnerable children living in difficult circumstances, this is a particularly negative situation. These children need early learning opportunities to be prepared for schooling and life and they have missed out on these. They will face these challenges as they enter formal schooling.
“Our vulnerable young children’s development will be significantly impacted socially, emotionally, cognitively, and physically. They had not been at an ECD centre or programme for many months and will have lost out on their socialisation and emotional development which is so important and that is enhanced in early learning programmes. They also lost out on their early numeracy and literacy learning which is particularly significant in the early years when young children learn at an astounding rate. All of this will impact their formal schooling and their lives.
“We need to move forward from here with a large-scale national early childhood initiative that supports young children’s early learning and well-being. This can happen at early childhood development centres, in early learning programmes, and at home with parents. A significant way to mitigate the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic is to support parents with the information, guidance, and resources to provide learning opportunities and activities with children in the home environment,” said Atmore.
With other factors influencing the development of children such as loss of income and ECD centres closing due to a lack of finances to sustain the operation, WCED spokesperson Bronagh Hammond said that going forward, the department is hoping that more children can attend ECD centres and improve attendance with recent function shifts to education.
“Covid-19 did hurt the ECD sector. Overall attendance decreased as a result of the fluctuating lockdown levels and concerns by parents or caregivers to send their children to centres during the pandemic period influenced this. We are aware of the positive effects of children attending quality ECD centres and through our management of data strategy, we will be able to draw the ECD sector into our data systems to create a long-term record of a child’s progress through the system.
“With one of our strategic goals being to improve early grade language and mathematics, along with the curriculum and learning material, we now have an opportunity to create a standardised early learning curriculum and associated learning material – just as has been done for schools. In terms of health and wellbeing, we have extensive experience with large-scale school nutrition and health interventions in partnership with the Department of Health. In regards to training and development, ECD practitioners play a vital role in our children’s development, and the department plans on supporting them accordingly,” said Hammond.