Thabo Ramphobole – SmartStart Early Learning

As Women’s Month draws to a close, there is a familiar temptation to celebrate women’s resilience and achievements. All of those things are worth recognising; however, recognition on its own does very little to change the conditions under which women live and work.

This is particularly true in the care economy where so much of the essential work women do remains poorly recognised and undervalued. Early learning is one such case. Across South Africa, thousands of women run early learning programmes (ELPs) from homes and community spaces. These programmes give young children opportunities to learn and develop, create livelihoods for the women who provide them, and make it possible for other caregivers, particularly women, to participate in work or study. In low-income communities, they are part of the social and economic infrastructure that keeps families and local economies going.

Yet the economics remain precarious. Research notes that programme fees in lower-income communities average between R218 and R313 per month, while nearly 90% of ELP staff earn below the national minimum wage [ECD Census, 2021; Thrive by Five, 2022]. While the existing government subsidy provides some relief, the amount is insufficient to cover all costs. Moreover, provider costs, household poverty and regulatory requirements all reinforce one another. The result is that ELPs serving low-income communities face infrastructure and compliance costs they cannot absorb, while the families they serve cannot pay higher fees.

The maths simply does not work if we expect parent fees and the ingenuity of individual women to carry the system.

This is where scaffolded support matters. SmartStart and Harambee’s paper, developed for the 2025 G20 Conference on Financial Inclusion and Women’s Empowerment, argues that expanding early learning access requires an environment in which more women can establish and sustain quality programmes over time. This scaffolded support can include programme start-up assistance, access to suitable venues and infrastructure, help navigating compliance and registration processes, training and coaching, business support, quality assurance, and pathways into public financing.

Many organisations in the sector already provide different forms of scaffolded support. SmartStart’s delivery platform helps practitioners with recruitment and programme set-up, training, coaching, quality support and navigating registration. IMBE’s 12-month Accelerator Programme offers targeted business management support to ELPs through the development of financial and business acumen, and assistive technology. Public Employment Programmes (PEPs) have also shown how temporary income support can reduce some of the risk involved in entering this ecosystem. These efforts are important but also cannot compensate for gaps in the wider system.

South Africa has committed to universal access to quality early learning by 2030. Realising this ambition requires government, civil society and other partners to create the conditions in which early learning provision can be scaled and sustained. Recent increases in public investment, the Mass Registration Drive and wider regulatory changes are important steps towards this but, significant barriers remain in reaching the most excluded children in communities.

For early learning to become a meaningful path into livelihoods for women and a foundation for children’s development, the answer cannot be to tell women to become more resilient, entrepreneurial or financially savvy. Many already are. The question is what government, civil society and other actors put around them so that their work can become sustainable.

This means financing that reflects what quality provision actually costs, and supporting women from the point at which they are trying to establish programmes, through to the period before they can access the ECD subsidy and beyond. It means investing in infrastructure, training and the wider support systems that make quality provision possible at scale. It also means finding better ways for government and non-state actors to combine their different capabilities, rather than expecting either providers or government to do everything alone.

Ultimately, recognising women’s contribution must mean more than celebrating what they manage to achieve despite difficult conditions. It requires that the conditions be changed so that the work women are already doing can offer a viable livelihood and enable South Africa to realise its commitment to quality early learning for every child.

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What does it take to ensure that every child in South Africa has access to quality early learning?

The answer cannot be found in one programme, organisation, or solution. It lies in the connections between the many people and parts of the early childhood development ecosystem – from families and practitioners to government, funders, researchers, technology providers, and community organisations.

This is the thinking behind Constellations of Change, a two-day gathering hosted by SmartStart on 11 and 12 August 2026 at Emperors Palace in Kempton Park, Johannesburg.

SmartStart’s work is rooted in a simple belief: every child deserves the opportunity to learn, grow, and thrive.

To reach every child, however, requires more than expanding individual programmes. It requires a stronger and more connected system – one where organisations share knowledge, build on one another’s strengths, and work towards a common purpose.

Constellations of Change will bring the SmartStart network together to reflect on the organisation’s journey, look ahead to its new five-year strategy, and explore SmartStart’s evolving role as a system catalyst.

The gathering will also create space to recognise the people and partnerships that make the work possible every day.

The first day will focus on the SmartStart network, bringing together implementing partners, programme leads, club coaches, frontline teams, contact-centre agents, and hub staff.

These are the people who support early learning delivery across communities. They recruit, train, coach, coordinate, problem-solve, and help create the conditions in which practitioners can support children.

The day will be an opportunity to:

Reflect on what the network has learned.
Connect around SmartStart’s five-year strategy.
Explore the shift from programme implementer to system catalyst.
Share ideas and experiences from across the network.
Celebrate the work of partners and teams.

The day will conclude with a gala dinner celebrating the network’s contribution to SmartStart’s recognition as a 2026 Skoll Award for Social Innovation recipient.

The second day will bring together the wider ECD ecosystem.

Government leaders, funders, researchers, technology providers, implementing organisations, and other partners will be invited to join the conversation about what it will take to expand access to quality early learning across South Africa.

The programme will explore the connections between:

Access
Nutrition
Quality
The ECD workforce
Financing
Data and evidence-building
Partnerships

These areas cannot be addressed in isolation. Access to early learning is connected to children’s health and nutrition. Quality depends on a skilled, supported, and sustainable workforce. Supporting that workforce requires appropriate financing, guided by evidence and strengthened through partnerships.

The event will ask how the ecosystem can move from working alongside one another to working more intentionally together.

A constellation is made up of individual points. Each point matters, but the pattern becomes visible only when the points are connected. The same is true of early learning. Every practitioner, family, organisation, funder, researcher, policymaker, and community leader has a role to play. Their work may look different, but it contributes to a shared system.

The question is not only what each organisation can do on its own. It is also:

Where can we work together?
How can we share what we are learning?
How can we reduce duplication?
How can we strengthen the parts of the system that support everyone?
How can we turn evidence into action?
How can we ensure that the voices of communities and practitioners shape the future of ECD?

Constellations of Change is not intended to be a conversation for its own sake but an opportunity to build relationships, surface important questions, and identify practical ways to strengthen the early learning ecosystem.

SmartStart’s next chapter will depend on its ability to work with others – not only as a delivery platform, but as a partner in building a more connected, coordinated, and effective system. The work ahead is complex. But the opportunity is significant.

When the different parts of the ecosystem connect, they can create something stronger than any one organisation could create alone: a future in which every child has access to quality early learning. That is the constellation we are working to build.

SmartStart’s work is rooted in a simple but powerful belief: every child deserves access to quality early learning from the start. In a recent feature with Business Minds Media, CEO Grace Matlhape shares more about the SmartStart’s vision, the importance of early learning in South Africa, and the role the organisation plays in helping to build stronger foundations for children, families, and communities.

The conversation highlights the scale of the challenge, but also the opportunity to create meaningful change by supporting practitioners, strengthening systems, and expanding access to early learning in communities that need it most. It is a reminder that investing in young children is about education along with dignity, equity, and long-term social impact.

Read the full article here: Grace Matlhape on Business Minds Media

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