Johannesburg – The government’s new policy brief, “Birth to three: Investing Early in Lifelong Development,” argues that the next wave of action should be stronger investment in the first three years of life, when brain development is most rapid, and children are most responsive to interaction and care.
Commenting on the policy brief, Hold My Hand acknowledges that South Africa has made important progress in expanding early childhood development (ECD) for four and five-year-olds.
However, Hold My Hand says this: “Work must continue until every three-to-five-year-old has access to out-of-home early learning opportunities”.
Hold My Hand is a national communications and social mobilisation campaign in support of the National Strategy to Accelerate Action for Children (NSAAC), to ensure that the rights and well-being of South Africa’s children and teenagers are prioritised.
Established through a partnership between the Presidency and the DG Murray Trust, the Hold My Hand Accelerator for Children and Teens has been set up to fast-track certain priority strategies in the NSAAC.
Most of what children need to succeed in school is learned before they ever enter a classroom — through everyday interaction with parents and caregivers, who are really their first teachers.
It is the home experience that shapes their readiness to learn long before formal education begins.
Many adults don’t understand the power of brain development in the first few years of a child’s life and would benefit from information and support to unlock this power.
Neuroscience confirms that brain development is most rapid and sensitive between birth and age three.
During this window, everyday interactions — such as talking, playing, and responding to a baby’s needs and attempts to communicate — create the neural foundations for memory, attention, and emotional regulation.
By the time children enter early learning programmes, many of these foundations are already in place — or missing.
With around one million children born each year, the majority of infants and toddlers are not in early learning programmes.
By the time they enter these programmes, many gaps — especially in language and early learning — are already in place, limiting how much they are able to benefit from later investments in education.
Without a coordinated strategy to support these families, developmental gaps, which are the biological markers of inequality, become embedded long before a child ever enters a classroom.
The policy brief, released by Hold My Hand and Change Ideas in support of the National Strategy to Accelerate Action for Children (NSAAC), highlights the central role of caregivers in shaping early learning during this period.
“When we ignore the birth-to-three period, we limit the impact of all later ECD and school reforms,” says Mikhaila Steenkamp, Language and Learning Lead at Hold My Hand.
“The cognitive and socio-emotional foundations for learning are already shaped, or compromised, before a child reaches preschool.
“Strengthening the home as the primary site of early learning is our highest-return investment for long-term productivity”.
The policy brief finds that the primary barrier to supporting infants and toddlers is not affordability, but the design of financing mechanisms.
While South Africa invests in ECD, there are limited sustained funding mechanisms for home-based caregiver support, and many programmes remain fragmented and dependent on donor funding.
Key recommendations from the policy brief include:
- Redirecting a modest share of existing ECD and Department of Health budgets to create a dedicated “birth to three” financing envelope.
- Embedding “Love, Play, Talk” guidance across routine health touchpoints, specifically leveraging Community Health Worker (CHW) outreach and the Road to Health Booklet (RtHB).
- Financing a national network of civil society and community-based organisations to scale evidence-informed, light-touch parenting models that reach families where they live.
- Making infants, toddlers, and their caregivers visible in national monitoring systems and investing in common, high-impact measures.
“The question is no longer whether South Africa can afford to invest in the first three years,” says Phylicia Oppelt, Project Lead at Change Ideas.
But as the brief concludes, “Can we afford not to? Acting early can prevent inequality from taking root and ensure that every child begins life with the relationships and support they need to thrive”.
For more information or to download the policy brief, visit https://www.holdmyhand.org.za/policy-briefs or Change Ideas.
