The role of early childhood development and education (ECDE) in supporting learning and well-being in rural early childhood and primary schools in South Africa

Ang, L.Du Preez, HannelieDu Plessis, Anna-BarbaraBasson, LizEbersohn, L. (Liesel)Gu, Qing2024-10-172024-10-172025L. Ang, H. du Preez, A. du Plessis, L. Basson, L. Ebersöhn & Q. Gu (2025) The role of early childhood development and education (ECDE) in supporting learning and wellbeing in rural early childhood and primary schools in South Africa, International Journal of Early Years Education, 33:2, 272-289, DOI: 10.1080/09669760.2023.2259953.0966-9760 (print)1469-8463 (online)10.1080/09669760.2023.2259953http://hdl.handle.net/2263/98629This paper examines how early childhood and primary schools can be constructed as enabling spaces to improve the learning and well-being of children aged six to nine who live in multidimensionally poor, low-resourced rural communities in South Africa. Quality early childhood development and education (ECDE) can be the catalyst to break the cycle of poverty for many young children in rural areas. A systematic review was conducted based on the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses flowchart. A comprehensive search strategy using electronic databases and hand searches systematically whittled down an initial database of 30,080 articles to 16 articles for this study. A thematic analysis identified enablers and constraints for supporting children’s learning and well-being across three themes: (1) infrastructure, educational resources and child agency (2) initial teacher education (ITE) and (3) socioeconomic status. The findings and discussion highlight child agency as an enabler to learning and well-being and the structural and pedagogical challenges of implementing ITE curricula specific to rural educational contexts.en© 2023 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/ licenses/by/4.0/).Early childhood educationPrimary schoolsChildrenRural communitiesSouth Africa (SA)SDG-04: Quality educationSDG-03: Good health and well-beingThe role of early childhood development and education (ECDE) in supporting learning and well-being in rural early childhood and primary schools in South AfricaArticle