Why it matters
Human capability begins in the first six years.
The foundations of how a person learns, relates and contributes are laid before school begins. In South Africa, too many children reach the classroom already behind, through no fault of their own.
The issue
The gap opens before the first school day.
8 million
There are 8 million children under 6 in South Africa.
As of 2021
25%
of children under six attend an early learning programme regularly
As of 2021
3 in 10 vs 8 in 10
of the poorest children in early learning programmes start school on track, against 8 in 10 from the richest households
As of c. 2021
2.5
years behind the curriculum by Grade 3, in the poorest 80% of schools
As of 2015
50%
of learners have dropped out of school by Grade 12
As of 2016
7 million+
children under ten live below the food poverty line
As of 2023
National figures cited in Indaba's 2024 prospectus. They describe the country, not Indaba's results.
The science
The most powerful years of human development.
The human brain develops most between birth and six. In the first years of life, more than a million neural connections form every second.
These connections are built through ordinary, repeated experiences: an adult who responds, a calm room, something worth doing within reach. Where those conditions are missing, no later intervention fully restores what was lost.
Why the early years
The highest return comes first.
Early childhood development is one of the highest-return investments a society can make. The first six years shape lifelong learning, health, wellbeing and economic opportunity.
Yet today’s system is organised around remediation, not prevention: resources concentrate downstream, in schools and later interventions, while little reaches the years when a child’s path is most open to change. The result is a system that works hard to catch children up, rather than giving them a strong start in the first place.
- The gap at the start
- 4 in 10
- Children in South Africa who begin school developmentally on track.
- Source: The Indaba Catalytic Initiative (2026–2029): Catalytic Partner Invitation, p. 1 (2026)
- What follows
- 81%
- Learners who cannot read for meaning by Grade 4: a symptom of challenges that begin long before school.
- Source: The Indaba Catalytic Initiative (2026–2029): Catalytic Partner Invitation, p. 1 (2026)
The lever
Every system depends on the adult beside the child.
A child does not experience a policy or a programme. A child experiences a person: a mother, a caregiver, a teacher.
Those carrying this responsibility in community early childhood centres are too often undertrained, underpaid and invisible. Preparing them is the most direct way to change what a child experiences every day.
Accelerating the transition
Excellence, from the few to the many.
Today most young children receive care and education that falls short of what they need, and only a few receive excellence. Indaba prepares the adults around every child, so that what works can travel to the many.
“The world does not lack evidence. It lacks the systems to deliver proven solutions consistently, affordably and at scale.”
Level of care and education received from birth to six
Today Most children receive care that falls short. A few receive excellence.
The transition Excellence becomes the norm, and falling short the exception.
Humanity doesn’t need to reinvent early childhood. It needs a breakthrough in how excellence is delivered.
Looking ahead
By 2050, Africa will be home to four in ten of the world's children under six.
What works here, in South Africa's communities, matters far beyond them.
Of every 100 children under six in the world in 2050
- 40 in Africa
- 60 in the rest of the world
