In the world of policy change, timing is everything. According to political science scholar John Kingdon, a significant policy shift happens when three things are in place. First, the problem must be well understood. Second, there must be a viable and feasible solution ready to address that problem. And third, there must be political will to deal with the problem.

When these conditions are met, a policy window opens, sometimes unpredictably. Having solutions ready at the right time is key to taking advantage of these opportunities. This could mean working for several years, even decades, building a body of evidence for your solution before an opportunity reveals itself.

For NGOs who have long been lobbying for systemic reforms to improve the accessibility and quality of early learning programmes in South Africa, a radical shift in the landscape presented itself in early 2024 when the minister of education called for an urgent push to register approximately 22 000 unregistered early learning programmes. Only registered programmes can access state subsidies for children in poorer communities.

Today, the mass registration drive (as it’s known to those involved in its design and implementation) is a collaborative effort between government and its social partners.

In this Nourish & Flourish conversation, we talk to Kayin Scholtz, process design lead for the mass registration drive about how social partners are rallying to support the Department of Basic Education’s efforts to expand access to early childhood development subsidies and the conditions that made all this possible.