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Overview of the Provincial Revenue and Expenditure (OPRE %u2013 2025/26)Education Early Childhood Development (ECD) The National Development Plan (2011) highlights that the most effective and cost-effective time to intervene in the development of a child is before birth and in the early years of life. In addition, the physiological capital accrued in the first 1 000 days of life provides the scaffold for human growth and development, and ECD represents the most powerful investment in human capital that a country can make. Figure 1.8: Percentage distribution of attendance of Early Childhood Development (ECD), 2022 None (%)Creche/ educare center (%) Pre-school/ nursey school, grade 00/ grade 000/ grade R (%) Day mother/Gogo/Childminder (%)Home/Community play group (%)FS 34.3 44.1 5.82 9.23 5.93WC 30.4 44.1 6.01 10 8.78GP 33.6 40.8 7.11 11 6.67LP 38.7 37.8 8.6 9.36 4.84SA 39.8 36 7.34 10.02 6.1EC 43.9 34 9.01 8.17 4.25MP 42.6 31.6 6.87 10.91 7.25KZN 43.3 30.7 7.75 11.61 5.93NW 52.4 28 6.2 7.78 5.08NC 56.7 27.4 3.87 5.51 6.03Source: 2022-2023, Statistics South Africa In aligning to the precepts of the NDP and other provincial legislative mandates, in 2022 at a national level, four out of ten young children had access to a formal ECD programme. Provinces which have higher levels of access to an ECD programme include the Free State (49.92 per cent), Western Cape (50.11 per cent) and Gauteng (47.91) Provinces. The Eastern Cape Province can be commended for prioritizing early childhood development as noted in the function shift of ECD from The Department of Social Development to the Department of Education who are directly involved with the education of young children. To date, the EC records that approximately 43 per cent of children (or four out of ten children) attended an ECD programme granting them increased access to learning, development and educational opportunities from a very young age. 10