One-third of SA children can’t recognise own name at school entry

A third of children entering school in South Africa can’t recognize their own name. This is according to a study conducted by a global children’s charity organisation, Theirworld.

Two thousand educators across the world were surveyed for the study.

President of Theirworld, Justin van Fleet, says 38% of teachers in the country say children entering primary school are not developmentally ready when they start school.

“What this means is that they are not able to perform basic age-appropriate tasks, whether that be washing their hands, going to the bathroom independently, recognising letters, basic words, or their own name. And a third of teachers said that children entering school in South Africa are worse off than children entering school a few years ago. When we tried to probe and figure out why teachers are seeing this on the first day of primary school. Many of them pointed to a lack of quality preschool and early childhood education,” says Fleet.