The COVID-19 pandemic negatively affected South African school attendance as the number of children who did not attend school almost doubled from 2019 to 2021, according to Statistics SA (StatsSA).
StatsSA released its General Household Survey (GHS) last week, with data showing that the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic were still lingering for early childhood development and school attendance. The GHS tracks the progress of development in South Africa and identifies persistent service delivery gaps.
The report revealed that Covid-19 changed the nature of child-care arrangement as the percentage of children aged 0 to 4 years who remained at home with a parent, guardian, other adults or children increased from 57.8% in 2019 to 64.6% in 2021.
The Covid-19 pandemic also negatively affected school attendance as the percentage of children who attended Grade R, pre-school, nursery school, crèche and edu-care centres decreased from 36.8% in 2019 to 28.5% in 2021. The percentage of children aged 5 who did not attend an educational institution increased from 10.9% in 2019 to 37.7% in 2020, before dropping to 19.4% in 2021.
The GHS also revealed that a similar pattern was observed for children aged 6 as it increased to 11.8% in 2020 before declining to 5.9% by 2021.
“Although participation (enrolment) in education was still relatively high, data shows that a slightly higher percentage of children in older age groups were not attending school compared with 2019. The percentage of individuals aged 20 and older who did not have any education decreased from 11.4% in 2002 to 3.2% in 2021, while those with at least a Grade 12 qualification increased from 30.5% to 50.5% over the same period,” StatsSA said.
The study added that intergenerational functional literacy also decreased markedly, as while 35.8% of South Africans over the age of 60 did not attain at least a Grade 7 qualification, this figure dropped to only 3.2% for those aged 20 to 39.
The GHS further revealed that the percentage of households with access to an improved source of water increased from 84.4% to 88.7% between 2002 and 2021. StatsSA said despite these improvements, access to water declined in six provinces between 2002 and 2021 and these include Limpopo, Mpumalanga and North West.
“The declines, however, belie the fact that more households had access to piped water in 2021 than two decades earlier,” StatsSA said.
The study added that the percentage of households whose members usually wash hands with soap and water increased from 43.6% to 59.1% between 2019 and 2021, while the percentage of households whose members only rinsed their hands with water decreased from 50.8% to 35.2%, over the same period of time.
Electricity supply from the mains rose from 76.7% in 2002 to 89.3% in 2021, accompanied by a decrease in the use of wood (20% to 7.7%) and paraffin (16.1% to 3.5%) over the same period.
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