Celebrating the unsung heroes in education

EVERY morning, while most of the country is still asleep, a quiet army of women is already at work.

- DR ONYINYE NWANERI

They sweep classroom floors, set out tiny chairs, colouring books and crayons, and arrange toys and learning aids that will spark curiosity and wonder.

In township backyards and rural kitchens, they pull on aprons, stir porridge pots and eventually greet small, sleepy faces with love and warmth that makes them feel welcome and at home.

Many of these women are "gogos" caring for grandchildren so that their own adult children can catch early taxis to jobs miles away. Others are employees and volunteers at early learning centres.

All spend every day holding the hands that will one day hold our nation's future. They are seldom, if ever in the news - but their work is nothing short of heroic.

The scale of this quiet army of Early Childhood Development (ECD) educators, carers and entrepreneurs is larger than most people realise. The last national ECD Census, completed in February 2022, counted over 42 400 early learning programmes serving about 1.66 million enrolled children, and staffed by nearly 200 000 people.

These figures have undoubtedly risen in the past three years. Current estimates by Ilifa Labantwana suggest that around 250 000 people (mostly women) are employed in the sector, and the vast majority of them earn below the minimum wage.

Behind this "formal" ECD system is an even bigger layer of unpaid care. Stats SA reports that about 6.7 million grandparents live with around 9.7 million children.