By Lebone Rodah Mosima
Education minister Siviwe Gwarube has said her department had “radically turned the education system on its head” to prioritise early learning, literacy, and numeracy.
Gwarube was speaking in the National Assembly in response to President Cyril Ramaphosa’s State of the Nation Address, which he delivered last week.
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“The president has correctly placed growth and jobs at the centre of the national agenda [in his address], but no country can grow without an education system that works,” she said.AL
Gwarube said her focus since taking office had been improving foundational literacy and numeracy, adding that stronger basics would allow more pupils to take “gateway subjects” that respond to the needs of the country’s economy.
A major emphasis of her speech was early childhood development (ECD), where she said the government had surpassed its targets for registering centres under the Bana Pele Mass Registration Drive.
“Last year, we set an ambitious target through the Bana Pele Mass Registration Drive to register 10 000 ECD centres by 31 December 2025,” she said. “We reached that target by September and closed the year with over 13 000 registered centres.”
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Gwarube said the expansion had widened access to nutrition and early learning for young children. “This means over 1.3 million children have access to good nutrition, foundational learning and safe places,” she said.
She said the government had allocated “R10 billion over the next three years to support ECD, increasing the subsidy to R24 per child per day,” and that “in 2025 we added 150 000 children to gain access to this subsidy”.
“South Africa is not a poor country. Our children cannot die of hunger,” Gwarube said. “That is why we are including school nutrition at ECD centres.”
“In addition, we have established the nearly R500 million Outcomes-Based Fund to create over 100 000 new ECD spaces across three of our rural provinces: KwaZulu-Natal, the Eastern Cape, and Limpopo — the largest Early Childhood Care and Education fund of its kind, globally,” she said.
Gwarube said fiscal pressure remained a constraint, but that provinces would be required to protect frontline learning.
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“[T]remendous progress is being made even in the harshest fiscal constraints,” she said. “Each province is required to produce financial recovery plans to protect the classroom from budgetary pressures.”
“If we get the basics right — reading, writing, counting, safe schools, supported teachers, and accountable governance — we will build the human capital that makes growth possible and restores dignity to millions of our people. We will not stop until we get it right.”
INSIDE EDUCATION
