Foundational learning and ECD centres in focus at G20 Provincial Education Indaba

“By far the greatest challenge that the basic education sector faces in our country is that we struggle to prioritise."

In addressing delegates at the Western Cape G20 Provincial Education Indaba, Education MEC, David Maynier added: “We try to do everything, everywhere, all at once, in a blizzard of pilot projects that have very little or no impact. We need to prioritise and do fewer things, but do them well. It’s time to stop ‘pilotitis’."

Maynier said that the WCED faces acute admissions pressure, with thousands of additional learners joining schools each year, but that as overwhelming as the pressures are, “we must not forget to recognise, and to celebrate, what is working and what is creating hope in our schools”.

The Western Cape Education Indaba was held under the themes ’Quality Foundational Learning – with emphasis on Early Childhood Development,’ as well as Educational Professional Development for a changing world.

The Indaba serves as a response to President Cyril Ramaphosa's recent call for public involvement in the G20 discussions, focusing on the Education Working Group agenda for the 2025 summit.

The indaba follows others that have been held across the provinces, with the Western Cape being the last before a national indaba is expected to take place next week.

Maynier said the G20 Indaba aims to propose clear, practical, implementable ideas, “so that the national minister can take these forward into her engagements with international counterparts”.

“The G20 engagements provide an important forum for developing solutions to the challenges we face. Too often, we get trapped in the mindset that South Africa’s problems are unique and that we are the only ones who can figure out how to solve them. But that is not the case: dozens of other countries in similar economic and social situations have grappled with the same challenges,” Maynier said.

“We cannot forget to look outwards, to see what other countries have done, and to share our experiences and successes with other countries, too.”

Basic Education Minister Siviwe Gwarube said they had to be purposeful and ensure that the global debates on education are not just abstract but that they connect to the classrooms in Khayelitsha, to the ECD centres in George, the high schools of Cape Town, and the rural schools stretching across the Karoo and the West Coast.

“It is important that abstract ideas find expression in the classroom; otherwise, then it becomes a conversation amongst all of us, and yet it cannot find expression in the life of either teachers or the learners,” Gwarube said.

She said that the G20’s education priorities speak directly to challenges and opportunities in the basic education sector, such as "Quality Foundational Learning", and "Professional Development for a Changing World".

“In Quality Foundational Learning, if we do not get the basics right, we undermine every other reform. With Professional Development for a Changing World, our teachers must be prepared for classrooms shaped by artificial intelligence, climate change, migration, and economic uncertainty.”

Gwarube went on to explain an analogy of two ten-year-old learners, one from an affluent home, where they read to, have access to good ECD centres, and have access to nutritious food. The other ten-year-old is raised in a home with no reading culture, and they will likely stay at home prior to going to Grade R/grade 1.

“They are expected to be able to read, and read for meaning quickly, and then they go through Grade 1 to Grade 3. In South Africa, a large majority of our Grade 3s are not cognitively developed enough to be at Grade 3’s academic level.

“Scarily enough, the children in Grade 3 are mostly at a Grade 1 level academically. Once they get to Grade 4 to take the international benchmark test, the first child thrives, while the second completely fails.

“The child fails not because they are incapable, but because the system didn’t take into account that they too need quality foundational learning, and good ECD centres.”

Gwarube explained that in South Africa, very few children fall into that first category and that the majority of ten-year-olds are the second child.

“That is a systemic problem, and literacy crisis, that says to us what needs to be done.”

She said it is necessary to make sure that the foundational stages set children up for success.

“Having ECD incorporated with DBE, is actually a massive opportunity for us, because now for the first time, Basic Education can look at our education system from a systemic point of view - where we are looking at a system not jabbed by urgent interventions because there is now somehow a crisis.”

Cape Times