Inclusive, Basic Education Including Early Education

The right to basic education from birth is a foundational building block of a rights-based developmental child-care and protection system. The failure to realise this right is at the heart of the dual education system in South Africa that sustains the patterns of inter-generational poverty and inequality that impede inclusive and equitable child and national development.

Goals

Inclusive basic education from birth until the completion of formal basic education is a non-negotiable for ensuring the rights of children to survive, develop to their full potential, be protected, and participate. As such it is a foundational building block of a rights-based developmental child-care and protection system – and a foundational building block of the coalition’s vision and goal.

The failure to realise the rights of all children to inclusive basic education sustains the patterns of inter-generational poverty and inequality that impede inclusive and equitable child and national development. Children living in poverty, in under-serviced rural and peri-urban areas, the youngest children aged 0-2, children with developmental delays and disabilities, ill children, children involved in child labour, teen parents and other vulnerable groups experience chronic educational exclusion.

The goal of this thematic area is therefore to eliminate educational exclusions and inequalities that drive intergenerational poverty and inequality by strengthening the enabling policy and legislative framework.

Objectives

To strengthen the enabling policy and legislative framework for a coherent, coordinated well-resourced single inclusive basic education system
To advocate for the development and adoption of a national inclusive basic education policy and supporting laws – to replace White Paper 6 and consolidate the multiple policies in places
To advocate for the development and adoption of a robust inclusive early education policy and law

Strategic Interventions

Our education objectives and goal will be pursued through the following strategic activities:

Policy, legislative and systems review of governing arrangements
Development of evidence-based recommendations for legislative, policy and systemic revisions and developments
Advocating for adoption of proposed policy, legislative and systemic amendments / innovations.