Much of the discussion regarding how to improve education in South Africa focuses on what happens in the school classroom, from how to approach literacy and numeracy, to teacher development, infrastructure and what happens inside the classroom. While these are all important factors, learning starts long before a child walks through a school gate.
The earliest years of a child's life lay important foundations for language, confidence, relationships, emotional wellbeing and future learning. The first 1 000 days are a particularly critical period of development, while the brain continues to develop rapidly throughout the first five years.
This raises an important question, says Kerri-Lee Schneider, Discipline Leader at STADIO: “How do we ready children, not for school, but for learning?”
Schneider believes the answer must include the people caring for and educating children during those formative years.
Early childhood development enables future educational success
The shift towards prioritising Early Childhood Development (ECD) is already happening at policy level. In April 2022, responsibility for ECD moved from the Department of Social Development to the Department of Basic Education.
The move reflects a growing recognition that early childhood plays an important part of a child's educational journey. This is captured in the term Early Childhood Care and Education (ECCE), which deliberately brings care and education together.
As Schneider explains, young children need safe environments, appropriate nutrition and care for their physical and emotional wellbeing. But beyond that, they also need opportunities to explore, communicate, develop relationships and make sense of the world around them.
“We need to move away from the idea that working with very young children is simply babysitting,” says Schneider. “These are the years in which we are building minds and laying foundations for lifelong learning.”
That doesn't mean recreating a Grade 1 classroom for two- and three-year-olds. Quite the opposite. Intentional early learning is grounded in an understanding of how young children actually develop.
Play, for example, is not a break from learning. It is one of the primary ways children learn.
“Play is the business of childhood,” says Schneider.
Professionalisation must widen access
Many of the people already working with young children in South Africa have developed considerable knowledge through experience, sometimes supported by short courses or workplace training, without having had access to a recognised higher education qualification.
If South Africa wants to professionalise ECCE, it needs pathways that allow these practitioners to build on what they already know.
Schneider says that starting those pathways only at degree level risks excluding people who may have years of practical experience but do not yet meet the entry requirements for an NQF Level 7 qualification.
It’s this gap that STADIO hopes to address with its new Higher Certificate in Early Childhood Care and Education, with its first intake planned for Semester 1, 2027.
The one-year, NQF Level 5 qualification will initially be offered through distance learning, creating an accessible entry point into higher education for people interested in building a career in the sector. This includes existing ECD practitioners, childminders and caregivers who want to formalise and deepen their knowledge, as well as school leavers interested in entering the field.
“Professionalisation shouldn't mean disregarding the experience people already have,” says Schneider. “There are practitioners who have spent years caring for and working with young children. We need to recognise that experience and create opportunities for them to deepen their knowledge and develop further.”
Bringing knowledge and practice together
The qualification takes a holistic view of children's development from birth, covering areas including health, safety and wellbeing; nutrition and care; child growth and development; language and foundational literacies; social and emotional development; and intentional, age-appropriate learning.
Students will also complete six weeks of practical learning in registered early childhood settings. The first two weeks focus primarily on observation and understanding the ECCE environment, while a four-week block later in the programme gives students opportunities to facilitate early learning experiences themselves.
The programme has been informed by South African frameworks including the National Curriculum Framework for Children from Birth to Four and the National Early Learning and Development Standards. STADIO's relationships with international institutions working in ECCE, such as Queen Maud University College of Early Childhood Education in Norway, Pacific Oaks College in the United States and Brock University in Canada, have also provided exposure to international thinking and practice in the field
Importantly, the Higher Certificate is intended as an entry point rather than an end point. For some students, it may provide a foundation from which to pursue further studies, subject to the relevant admission requirements.
"There are people already doing this work, with years of practical knowledge and experience. This qualification creates an accessible opportunity for them to build on that foundation, deepen their knowledge and take the next step in their professional development,” says Schneider.
Schneider believes that investing in the people who help children build their earliest education foundations should not be viewed as a cost to society, but as a long-term investment that benefits individuals, families, communities and future generations.
If South Africa wants to improve educational outcomes in Grade 1 and beyond, that investment cannot begin only at the school gate. It must also begin with the people helping children learn, grow and develop in the years before they reach it.
