New crèches may have to close because of late payments by education department

Four Early Childhood Development (ECD) centres in Loskop (eMangweni), a rural area in the Drakensberg, have moved into new buildings but are struggling to stay open because the KwaZulu-Natal Department of Education has failed to pay subsidies on time.

The subsidies are set by the national government, currently at R17 a day per child. Subsidies are expected to increase this year, for the first time since 2017, to R24 a day per child.

GroundUp has previously reported on how late payments have affected hundreds of ECD centres in KZN. These late payments resulted in legal action, and the department was ordered to pay three crèches the subsidies owed them within 10 days.

Five crèches in the Loskop area have new buildings provided through the Santa Shoebox Project but are currently struggling to receive funding. A fifth, due to move into new buildings soon, may have to downscale before then.

Soul City Creche is one of the five centres affected. The last payment the crèche received, in March this year, was a back payment for November, December and January, says Cecilia Mbatha, the centre’s founder.

The centre is now owed around R35,000 by the department, and Mbatha says she is not sure how long it can continue operating.

Soul City receives R7,000 a month from the department, which is supposed to cover 20 of its 58 children, says Mbatha. But the centre spends at least R4,000 a month just on food or those 20 children, she says.

When the creche eventually does get paid, it will have to back pay its staff who have not received a salary for the last three months, says Mbatha. “It’s so terrible to work with people you can’t even give R100 to. They’ve got their own families.”

Soul City moved into its newly built crèche in 2020 when funding was still distributed by the Department of Social Development. According to Mbatha, there were issues with funding back then, but things got a lot worse with late payments when the KwaZulu-Natal department of education took over the grant payments in 2022.

It’s hard to work in a brand new building and still struggle for money, she says.

Siphiwe Samangwe, another centre in the Loskop area, has not received funding since November last year. In total, the centre is owed around R58,344 by the department.

The centre is also a beneficiary of the Santa Shoebox project and is due to move into a new building soon. But without funding, says principal Cynthia Mabasa, the centre will not be able to look after the 90 children in its care. Most of the parents of the children are unemployed and can afford very little in the way of fees, says Mabaso.

But the centre will try to find ways to stay open because its services are badly needed in the community, says Mabaso.

Three other centres have been built by Santa Shoebox in the Loskop area. They have brand new facilities and meet all the department’s requirements, but they have been denied funding, says Debbie Zelezniak, Santa Shoebox Project CEO.

The department has never provided a proper reason, says Zelezniak. One of the creches, Qandokuhle Educare Centre, is close to having to shut its doors to its 28 beneficiaries after being in its new building for less than three years.

The problem of late payments is widespread throughout Loskop, says Terry Ralph, chairperson of Fundisa Umntwana, a non-profit organisation which assists ECD centres in the Loskop area.

Ralph, who is also the manager for the Santa Shoebox construction projects in Loskop, says about 20 centres have either received late payments or been denied funding at the last minute.

These ECD centres are allowed to go through the whole process to apply for funding, only to be told the department has no money and cannot accept any more beneficiaries, says Ralph.

The department had not responded to GroundUp’s questions by the time of publication.

This article first appeared on GroundUp. Read the original article here.