Early Childhood Development Center Owners’ Experiences of Navigating Regulatory Compliance in Johannesburg, South Africa: A Qualitative Case Study

Abstract

Although South Africa has developed policies to improve early childhood development (ECD), many ECD centers in low-income communities remain non-compliant with regulatory requirements, limiting their access to government subsidies and formal support. This study explores ECD center owners’ experiences of navigating the streamlined compliance process in Johannesburg. A qualitative multiple-case study design was used, involving in-depth interviews with five ECD center owners engaged with a municipal ECD Compliance Task Team. The findings indicate that participants entered ECD provision through a combination of community childcare needs, care commitments and livelihood necessity. Participants described material and financial barriers to compliance, including infrastructure requirements, building-plan costs and administrative complexity. They also described receiving practical support from the Compliance Task Team and partner organizations, although support did not result in uniform completion of the compliance process. The COVID-19 pandemic further disrupted operations through center closures, income loss, reduced enrolment and additional operating requirements. The findings highlight the importance of understanding regulatory compliance from the perspective of ECD providers and suggest that coordinated administrative support may help providers navigate complex compliance processes.

1. Introduction

Early childhood development (ECD) is regarded as a foundation to children’s cognitive, social, emotional, and physical wellbeing (Likhar et al. 2022; O’Keeffe et al. 2022). Evidence from previous studies has shown the benefits of attending ECD centers, citing increased educational attainment, increased employment opportunities, decreased crime and social inclusion (Black et al. 2017; García et al. 2019; Heckman 2012). In South Africa, ECD is a strategic priority as seen in the key objectives of the National Development Plan (NDP) to be achieved by 2030, which state that all children under the age of six years should have universal access to quality ECD services. Additionally, ECD is regarded as children’s constitutional right as seen in the Children’s Act 38 of 2005 and the National Integrated Early Childhood Development Policy (NIECD) (National Planning Commission 2012; Republic of South Africa 2005, 2015). These policies position early childhood investment as central to redressing historical, socioeconomic inequality resulting from the legacy of apartheid’s system of racial segregation, thereby advancing social justice (Martin et al. 2025).

Although the country has demonstrated progressive policy commitments, as reflected in the national constitution, the NDP, and the NIECD, access to quality ECD remains uneven. In 2021, South Africa had over 40% of unregistered ECD centers. This situation is particularly concerning given that nearly 60% of children under the age of 6 live in urban areas (Nharara and Ndlovu 2025; Sello et al. 2024; Stats SA 2024). Furthermore, in low-income communities in South Africa, over 60% of ECD centers operate without full regulatory compliance (Ally 2023; Nharara and Ndlovu 2025). In this study, compliance refers to the status recorded for specific regulatory requirements.

The literature in South Africa has also found barriers to legal compliance. Among the cited barriers to regulatory compliance is finances, as often approvals of compliance certificates with municipal by-laws, health and safety standards, land-use management, building regulations, and provincial registration requirements require application fees that some ECD centers cannot afford (Nharara and Ndlovu 2025; Pooe 2024; Sello et al. 2024). Additionally, more recently, South Africa has witnessed a function shift, with the ECD sector moving from the Department of Social Development (DSD) to the Department of Basic Education (DBE). This function shift has left many ECD center owners confused about the procedures they need to follow when trying to obtain legal compliance to operate their ECD centers (Martin et al. 2025; Matlala and Molokwane 2024; Sello 2025). Therefore, this complex, multi-step process—particularly for ECD center owners with limited capital—can be too administrative and onerous to navigate, making regulatory compliance unmanageable.

In South Africa, tensions have emerged around regulatory quality assurance, compliance, and equitable access to early childhood services. The importance of supporting ECD provision in disadvantaged communities is heightened by the concentration of social and economic disadvantage experienced by many children and families in these settings. High-quality early learning can provide important developmental opportunities during a critical period of childhood, making equitable access to quality provision particularly important for children whose families have fewer resources to compensate for gaps in early learning and care (Nharara and Ndlovu 2025; Pooe 2024; Sello et al. 2024). The issue is therefore not simply whether ECD centers comply with regulatory requirements, but whether regulatory systems are sufficiently accessible to enable providers serving disadvantaged communities to progress towards formalization without undermining their capacity to remain operational. This is particularly true in low-income contexts characterized by the prevalence of informality and structural inequality (Martin et al. 2025). Additionally, these tensions hamper on the sustainable development goals pertaining to quality education (SDG 4), decent work and economic growth (SDG 8), and reduced inequalities (SDG 10) (Martin et al. 2025; Nharara and Ndlovu 2025; Sello et al. 2024). Furthermore, ECD provision has historically been fragmented across sectors and spheres of government, where local municipalities are expected to step up. The local municipalities play a pivotal role in shaping the lived realities of ECD center owners, yet their contribution to streamlining registration processes are often underexamined (Atmore et al. 2012; Hall et al. 2023). Municipal officials serve as “street-bureaucrats”, directly interacting with ECD center owners and implementing the rules and regulations governing ECD compliance. In his theory, Michael Lipsky argues that frontline service providers are not passive implementers of policies; rather, they interpret the policy, adapt the rules to fit the context, exercise their own discretions in decision-making, and develop mechanisms to cope under resource constraints (Lipsky 1980).

In this study, the term “regulatory compliance process” refers specifically to the municipal ECD compliance support framework, rather than to the later national ECD mass registration initiative. At the time of the study, ECD compliance in the City of Johannesburg involved an interlinked process spanning several municipal functions, including land-use management, building control, environmental health, fire and safety, and registration with the Department of Social Development (DSD). To address the barriers faced by ECD center owners in terms of complying with the regulatory requirements, the City of Johannesburg established an interdepartmental ECD Compliance Task Team. The Task Team is part of the municipal governance and support, and it brought together municipal departments responsible for ECD-related regulatory functions, including Social Development, Development Planning–Land-Use Management, Building Development Management, Public Safety–Emergency Services, and Environmental Health Services. The support from the Task Team included providing information about compliance requirements, explaining application procedures, facilitating referrals between relevant departments, following up on documentation and applications, and linking ECD operators with additional technical support through Kago Ya Bana. This research was conducted in October 2020.

According to Mantjé (2022), municipalities have the authority to develop their own Integrated Development Plans (IDPs). These plans are documents that inform the development and planning of the municipal strategic action plans as required by Section 25 of the Municipal Systems Act (Mantjé 2022). However, while having an IDP is mandatory, municipalities are not mandated to include ECD programs as a priority (Mantjé 2022). In the 2020/2021 IDP, the City of Johannesburg (CoJ) supported the initiatives of the establishment of micro ECD enterprises in running ECD centers, arguing that this would create opportunities for affordable childcare and the promotion of quality education in the communities (CoJ 2021). However, non-compliance among ECD center owners has been a persistent issue, such that in the year 2014, the City of Johannesburg municipality only had 20% of compliant ECD centers that were legally registered and compliant with the municipality’s by-laws (Golela 2021). Furthermore, during the COVID-19 pandemic, data from the 2021 ECD census showed that only about 17% of the ECD centers were compliant in terms of legal registration with the Department of Social Development (DSD) (DBE 2021a, 2021b). Since the interviews were conducted in 2020, the governance of ECD in South Africa has subsequently changed, including the shift of the ECD function from the Department of Social Development to the Department of Basic Education along with the introduction of a national ECD mass registration initiative. The mass registration drive sought to legally register all ECD centers in the country. To date, nearly 80% of ECD centers in South Africa are now formally registered under the bronze category during the ECD mass registration drive (Department of Education Province of Gauteng 2025). There are three levels of registration: bronze, silver, and gold registration. This three-tier registration process was designed to make compliance more achievable for ECD centers. The bronze level is the minimum entry level for ECD centers to be legitimately recognized in the system. The silver level is a transitional stage where centers meet most regulatory requirements but still have outstanding issues. Finally, the gold level is where ECD centers are fully compliant with the ECD registration requirements, including approved municipal zoning and building plans, health clearance certificates, fires and safety compliance, qualified ECD practitioners, adequate infrastructure, full program compliance, and possession of the official DBE registration certificate (DSD 2021). Despite this mass registration reform, officials responsible for registering ECD centers still faced challenges with ECD centers that were not complying with the municipal by-laws. These developments are not examined as part of this study but are referenced to situate the findings within the broader evolution of ECD regulation and registration in South Africa.

This study draws on Lipsky’s (1980) theory of street-level bureaucracy and Moynihan et al.’s (2015) theory of administrative burden to understand ECD center owners’ experiences of municipal compliance. Street-level bureaucracy provides a lens for examining how owners experience the communication and application of regulatory requirements through their interactions with frontline municipal officials. In the present study, municipal officials responsible for land-use management, building control, environmental health, and fire and safety represent the relevant street-level bureaucratic actors. However, because the study interviewed ECD center owners rather than municipal officials, the analysis does not seek to assess officials’ motivations, discretion or decision-making directly. Instead, Lipsky’s framework is used as a sensitizing framework for examining how ECD center owners experience the communication, interpretation, and application of regulatory requirements in their interactions with frontline officials. The administrative burden theory focuses on three types of costs: learning costs, compliance costs, and psychological costs (Moynihan et al. 2015). In this study, learning costs may relate to understanding ECD regulations and registration requirements, while compliance costs may include the time, money, and effort needed to meet health, safety, and administrative standards. Psychological costs may include the stress and frustration associated with inspections, delays, and interactions with government officials. The theory can therefore help explain how regulatory processes shape ECD center owners’ experiences and the challenges they face in complying with government requirements. It also provides a basis for identifying ways to make regulatory processes more accessible for and supportive of ECD providers (Herd and Moynihan 2019). This study examines how owners experienced the compliance process, the challenges they encountered, and the support they received while navigating municipal requirements. In this study, the term “streamlined compliance process” refers specifically to the municipal compliance support arrangements operating in Johannesburg during the period covered by the original project in 2020. These arrangements involved coordination across municipal departments, information and guidance on regulatory requirements, referrals, follow-up on applications, and links to technical assistance. The term does not refer to the later national ECD mass registration or tiered registration reforms introduced after the interviews. Those later reforms are mentioned only to provide policy context. Specifically, the study asks the following questions: (1) How do ECD center owners describe their experiences of entering ECD provision and navigating municipal regulatory requirements? (2) What financial, infrastructural, administrative, and informational challenges do ECD center owners experience in meeting these requirements? (3) How do ECD center owners describe the support provided by the ECD Compliance Task Team and other stakeholders in navigating regulatory requirements, including during the COVID-19 pandemic?

By focusing on five ECD center owners engaged with the municipal Compliance Task Team, the study provides a qualitative account of how regulatory requirements and support were experienced at the level of ECD provision.

2. Materials and Methods

2.1. Research Approach and Case Study Design

This study adopted an interpretivist paradigm and a qualitative research approach to explore how ECD center owners experienced and navigated the municipal compliance process. An embedded multiple-case study design was used, with each participating ECD center treated as a separate case. The cases focused on the experiences of each ECD center’s owner in relation to municipal compliance requirements, interactions with municipal officials, engagement with the ECD Compliance Task Team, and the challenges of operating during the COVID-19 pandemic. The study included five ECD centers located in socioeconomically disadvantaged communities across Regions A, C, E, and G of the City of Johannesburg Metropolitan Municipality. The municipal ECD Compliance Task Team formed part of the institutional and governance context within which the centers operated and was not treated as a separate case. The cases were considered in relation to the center, its owner, location, compliance status at the time of data collection, and involvement in the municipal compliance process. Within each case, the ECD center owner’s account was examined to understand their experiences of navigating the compliance process. The accounts were then compared across the five cases to identify common and differing experiences. These included reasons for entering ECD provision, regulatory and financial challenges, experiences with administrative processes, institutional support, and the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. This approach allowed the study to retain the experiences of individual ECD center owners while also identifying broader patterns across the cases.

The data used in this study were collected in October 2020 as part of an ECD Census commissioned by Kago Ya Bana in partnership with the City of Johannesburg Metropolitan Municipality’s ECD Compliance Task Team. The ECD Compliance Task Team included representatives from the municipal departments responsible for ECD-related matters, including Social Development (convening department), Development Planning—Land-Use Management, Building Development Management, Public Safety-Emergency Services, and Health-Environmental Health Services. The Hollard Foundation Trust, as an MOU partner, was also represented on the Task Team. The original data collection took place during the COVID-19 pandemic and was undertaken in the context of municipal efforts to understand barriers to ECD compliance and improve compliance processes. The present study constitutes a secondary analysis of these existing qualitative data.

2.2. Context

The study focused on socioeconomically disadvantaged communities in Lehae, Orange Farm, Ivory Park, and Klipfontein, spanning administrative Regions A, E, C, and G. These areas were purposively selected due to their high levels of socioeconomic vulnerability, characterized by elevated poverty rates, informal settlements, unemployment, and limited access to quality early childhood development (ECD) services, reflecting persistent spatial inequalities rooted in South Africa’s apartheid legacy (Shahaboonin et al. 2023). The Johannesburg municipality plays a critical role in ECD governance through its authority over land-use management, building control, environmental health inspections, and fire safety compliance, all of which were requirements for registration with the governmental department of Social Development (DSD) before the function shift of the ECD sector to the Department of Basic Education (DBE) (DBE 2021a, 2021b; Matlala and Molokwane 2024). At the time of the study, the municipality had established an interdepartmental ECD Compliance Task Team to address systemic bottlenecks and improve coordination across departments. The support provided through this framework included information and guidance on compliance requirements, referrals between departments, follow-up on applications, and links to additional technical assistance.

2.3. Sampling Strategy

The study followed a purposive sampling approach to selecting five ECD center owners whose centers were engaged with the Johannesburg municipal ECD Compliance Task Team. The intention was not to obtain a representative sample of ECD center owners in Johannesburg, but to develop information-rich cases illustrating different stages and experiences of the compliance process. Selection sought variation in geographic location, physical structure, length of operation, and compliance status. The five centers included house-based and backroom-based centers, the latter operating from secondary residential structures built within the yards of existing properties. At the time of the interviews, the cases represented different stages of compliance, including centers that had obtained registration and funding and centers with outstanding regulatory requirements. The inclusion criteria were (i) being the owner/operator responsible for an ECD center; (ii) having operated the center for several years and therefore having experience of the compliance process; and (iii) having engaged with the municipal ECD Compliance Task Team. The sample intentionally included operators at different stages of compliance, including centers that had obtained DSD registration and funding and centers with outstanding municipal or provincial requirements. The exclusion criteria were participants who did not meet these characteristics, including individuals who were not the owner/operator of the participating center or who had no experience of engaging with the municipal compliance support process. The study did not include ECD practitioners, parents, children, or municipal officials as interview participants.

2.4. Data Collection Methods

The study used purposive sampling to identify women who operated ECD centers and had engaged with the municipal ECD Compliance Task Team. The lead researcher received a list of 20 ECD centers from municipal officials that were linked to the Task Team. Data collection took place in October 2020, during the COVID-19 pandemic, when movement restrictions limited face-to-face contact and access to ECD centers. The lead researcher contacted the ECD center owners on the list by telephone to invite them to participate in the study. Of the 20 ECD center owners contacted, 7 could be reached and consented to participate. At the time of the interviews, only five of these participants were available and could be interviewed. The remaining two participants could not be followed up at a later stage because of budget constraints. The final sample consisted of five women who operated ECD centers, had engaged with the municipal ECD Compliance Task Team, and participated in interviews conducted at their respective ECD centers. The lead researcher approached the participants directly and was not involved in decisions about their compliance status or their access to municipal assistance. Potential participants received information about the study and were informed that participation was voluntary and that declining to participate would have no consequences for their relationship with the municipality, Kago Ya Bana, or the ECD Compliance Task Team. The Task Team was not informed about individual decisions to participate or decline participation. Interviews were conducted by the lead researcher at the participants’ ECD centers between the 28 and 30 October 2020. The timing when the interviews were conducted was approximately seven months after the introduction of South Africa’s national COVID-19 lockdown in March 2020. Participants therefore reflected on experiences of closure, income loss, delayed compliance processes, reopening, and the introduction of COVID-19 operating requirements.

Data was collected through five in-depth and semi-structured interviews with five ECD center owners who had engaged with the City of Johannesburg’s ECD Compliance Task Team. The interviews were designed to elicit detailed accounts of participants’ experiences of establishing and developing their ECD centers, navigating regulatory requirements, and interacting with government and other support organizations. The semi-structured format provided a common set of topics across interviews while allowing participants to elaborate on experiences that they considered important.

The semi-structured interview guide covered participants’ pathways into ECD provision, experiences of establishing and operating their centers, understanding of regulatory and compliance requirements, and experiences of engaging with the City’s compliance support project and relevant government departments. Interviews also explored the support and follow-up received, experiences of obtaining required documents and approvals, and the sharing of information about available support with other ECD operators. The interviews further examined the effects of COVID-19 on center operations, including communication with parents and support for children during the pandemic. The interviews were audio-recorded with participant’s consent using recorders and recordings were transcribed by the lead researcher for analysis. The interviews were conducted in Sesotho and isiZulu, which are the commonly spoken local languages in South Africa.

Recordings were transcribed in the languages used during the interviews and subsequently translated into English for analysis and reporting. Translated quotations were checked against the source transcripts to preserve their substantive meaning. Minor editorial changes were made where necessary for readability, without altering participants’ intended meaning.

The interviews focused on the ECD center owners’ entry into the ECD sector, their understanding of compliance requirements and perceived benefits, their experience with the municipal inspections and by-laws, and their engagement with the Compliance Task Team. The interview guide was designed around these themes and allowed participants to elaborate on experiences they considered important. The small number of cases allowed detailed attention to individual compliance journeys and facilitated cross-case comparison. Given the purposive nature of the sample, the findings are presented as analytically informative rather than generalizable to all ECD center owners in Johannesburg.

2.5. Participant Information

The original project was designed to document compliance journeys rather than collect comprehensive sociodemographic profiles. Therefore, variables such as age, educational attainment, staffing numbers, and detailed fee structures were not systematically collected across all five cases. These characteristics are therefore not reported as comparative participant variables.

2.6. Data Processing and Analysis

The interview transcripts were analyzed thematically using Atlas.ti v25. Analysis followed a six-step approach outlined by Braun and Clarke. First, the transcripts were read repeatedly to familiarize the researchers with the participants’ accounts. Second, initial codes were generated from meaningful statements relating to participants’ experiences of compliance, financial constraints, administrative processes, institutional interactions, care responsibilities, and COVID-19. Third, related codes were grouped into preliminary categories and potential themes. Fourth, preliminary themes were reviewed against the coded extracts and the full dataset to assess their coherence and distinctiveness. Fifth, themes were refined, named, and defined. Sixth, the themes were interpreted in relation to the research questions and theoretical framework.

Coding proceeded in two stages. The first stage was primarily inductive, allowing codes and categories to emerge from participants’ accounts without requiring them to fit predetermined theoretical categories. The second stage involved deductive interpretation, in which the emerging themes were considered in relation to street-level bureaucracy. The illustrative coding audit trail has been provided in Supplementary Table S1. In the second stage, the emerging themes were interpreted using the theoretical framework. Lipsky’s (1980) theory was used to examine accounts relating to the communication, interpretation, and application of municipal requirements. Furthermore, the administrative burden theory helps distinguish between learning costs, compliance costs, and psychological costs associated with interactions with public administrations (Moynihan et al. 2015).

These concepts provided an interpretive framework for examining participants’ accounts of understanding regulatory requirements, meeting documentation and infrastructure requirements, and experiencing stress or frustration during the compliance process.

The lead researcher conducted the initial coding, and the second researcher reviewed the codes and emerging themes. The researchers discussed the coding and agreed on the themes most relevant to the research questions and theoretical framework. This process provided a further check on the interpretation of the data and helped ensure that the theoretical concepts were used to interpret, rather than determine, the findings.

To provide an audit trail, the researchers documented the movement from initial codes to categories and final themes. For example, statements concerning unclear instructions, repeated referrals, and difficulty understanding where documents should be submitted were initially coded as “unclear information,” “multiple referrals” and “uncertain administrative pathway.” These codes were grouped under the category “administrative uncertainty” and contributed to the final theme “Navigating administrative complexity, uncertainty and emotional strain.” Similarly, codes relating to building-plan fees, structural modifications, permit costs, and reduced enrolment were grouped under “material and financial costs of compliance.” The final themes were reviewed against the relevant coded extracts and the full set of transcripts before being defined and named.

2.7. Trustworthiness and Rigor

The credibility of the findings was strengthened by comparing participants’ accounts with documentation available through the municipal ECD Compliance Task Team. The documentation related to the participating ECD centers and included records such as land-use approvals, building plans, health permits and registration information. These records were used to confirm reported compliance steps and the progress of centers through the municipal compliance process.

This comparison was limited to information about the centers’ compliance status and did not involve assessing or verifying participants’ personal experiences, perceptions or interpretations. For example, a participant’s account of having submitted a building plan could be compared with the available municipal documentation to establish whether this compliance step had been recorded. However, the participant’s account of how the process was experienced, including any challenges or frustrations, was treated as their own experience and was not judged against the administrative record.

Additionally, detailed quotes were drawn from transcripts to preserve contextual richness.

2.8. Researcher Reflexibility

Reflexivity was important because the study was conducted within a commissioned project involving Kago Ya Bana and the City of Johannesburg’s ECD Compliance Task Team. The researchers recognized that participants’ awareness of these organizational relationships could influence how they described their experiences, particularly when discussing regulatory difficulties, financial challenges and interactions with municipal officials. The research team therefore distinguished between the role of the organizations in supporting the broader compliance initiative and the researchers’ role in documenting and analyzing participants’ accounts.

During data collection and analysis, the researchers maintained reflexive notes concerning their assumptions about regulatory compliance, institutional support and ECD provision. The analysis sought to preserve participants’ accounts, including experiences that were critical of aspects of the compliance process and the support received. The researchers also used pseudonyms and removed identifying information in reporting to reduce the potential risks associated with discussing regulatory non-compliance. Finally, the variation in sampling included owners at different states to strengthen the robustness for thematic comparisons. Transferability was supported through detailed contextual description of challenges experienced with the compliance process to assess applicability to similar urban governance contexts.

2.9. Ethical Considerations

The original interviews were conducted in 2020 as part of a commissioned project documenting ECD operators’ experiences of the municipal compliance process. The ECD Census was undertaken as part of routine municipal activities and was not designed as an independent academic research study. Therefore, no institutional research ethics approval was obtained for the original Census. For the census, participation was voluntary and consent for audio-recorded interviews was obtained. However, the available records do not specifically document consent for subsequent academic publication of the interview material. The secondary analysis was reviewed by the University of Johannesburg Faculty of Humanities Research Ethics Committee, which granted an ethics waiver under reference REC-00-1620-2026. The scope of this waiver and the applicable conditions for secondary use of the interview material are acknowledged as part of the study’s ethical reporting.

Given the small number of participants and the sensitivity of accounts concerning regulatory non-compliance, financial hardship and interactions with municipal structures, removing names alone could not guarantee anonymity. The manuscript therefore uses case labels and excludes center names, personal names, precise addresses and other nonessential identifying details. Distinctive narrative details and quotations were considered for their potential to permit deductive identification by readers familiar with the municipal initiative. Where appropriate, nonessential details were generalized or omitted while preserving the substantive meaning of participants’ accounts. These measures reduce, but cannot eliminate, the risk of deductive identification. The findings are consequently presented with particular attention to confidentiality and to avoiding unnecessary disclosure of information that could expose individual operators to reputational or regulatory harm.

3. Results

Table 1 presents the regulatory status of the five ECD centers at the time of the October 2020 interviews. Compliance was assessed in relation to distinct requirements, including land-use management, building-plan approval, consent letters, fire and evacuation plans, health permits, and registration with the Department of Social Development (DSD). These requirements represented separate stages of the regulatory process and should not be interpreted as interchangeable indicators of compliance. Two centers had obtained DSD registration and government funding, while three had not completed the full process. Among the latter, one center had obtained building-plan approval and a health permit but was still completing DSD registration; another had outstanding health-permit and DSD registration requirements; and the third had an outstanding building-plan requirement associated with structural modifications.

Table 1. ECD center characteristics, Johannesburg municipality. Assessment period: October 2020.

Case	Building Plans	Health Permit	DSD Registration	Government Subsidy
Case 1	Approved	Approved	Approved	Received
Case 2	Approved	Approved	Approved	Received
Case 3	Approved in February 2020	Approved	In progress	Not yet received
Case 4	Approved	Pending	Incomplete	Not yet received
Case 5	Outstanding structural requirements	Approved	Incomplete	Not yet received

Note: Compliance status reflects the position documented at the October 2020 assessment. Building-plan approval, health permits, DSD registration and receipt of a government subsidy are reported as separate requirements or milestones. “In progress” indicates an application that had not been completed at the time of the interview; it does not imply that all preceding requirements remained outstanding.

Table 2 presents the cross-case thematic structure of the study and the compliance levels of ECD center owners. The cross-case analysis identified five interconnected themes: community need, care and livelihood; the material and financial costs of compliance; administrative complexity and uneven information; experiences of intermediary support in navigating the compliance process; and COVID-19-related operational vulnerability. Across the five cases, owners described balancing their commitment to children and community childcare needs with the financial and practical demands of operating ECD centers. Although all reported engaging with compliance support, their progress varied: Cases 1 and 2 had achieved DSD registration and were receiving government funding, while Cases 3–5 continued to face outstanding requirements at the time of the October 2020 assessment. The pandemic further intensified operational and financial pressures, although government subsidies provided some assistance to the funded centers. Overall, the findings illustrate how resource constraints and administrative demands shaped owners’ reported experiences of pursuing compliance. However, the qualitative evidence does not establish that intermediary support caused compliance outcomes or that funding protected centers from the effects of COVID-19.

Table 2. Cross-case thematic structure of ECD center owners’ compliance experiences.

Theme	Definition	Supporting Cases	Key Cross-Case Evidence
1. Community Need, Care and Livelihood Necessity	Motivations for entering ECD provision and the role of community demand, caregiving commitments and livelihood needs.	Cases 1–5; particularly Cases 4 and 5 for explicit livelihood motivations.	Across all five cases, owners described responding to community childcare needs and caring for children. Case 1 emphasized a longstanding commitment to children in the community, while Case 2 initially understood her work as helping parents who needed childcare. Case 3 described responding to community demand. Cases 4 and 5 explicitly linked starting an ECD center to unemployment or the need for income, alongside their commitment to children.
2. Material and Financial Costs of Compliance	Financial, infrastructural and household demands associated with meeting regulatory requirements.	Cases 1–5; particularly Cases 3–5.	Owners described costs associated with building plans, structural improvements, permits and adapting centers to regulatory requirements. Case 3 described significant household sacrifices associated with operating from a container, while Case 4 reported repeated building-plan submissions and related costs. Case 5 faced unresolved building-plan requirements. These accounts illustrate how limited financial resources constrained owners’ ability to address compliance requirements.
3. Administrative Complexity and Uneven Information	Experiences of navigating multiple regulatory requirements, departments, procedures and sources of information.	Cases 1–5; Case 2 provides contrasting evidence of early practical guidance.	Owners described repeated administrative processes, uncertainty about requirements and difficulties obtaining approvals. Case 2 recalled receiving clear initial guidance from a Department of Social Development (DSD) social worker but subsequently experienced a lengthy building-plan approval process and multiple referrals between municipal offices. The contrast illustrates that helpful individual interactions did not necessarily remove the wider administrative challenges.
4. Intermediary Support and Compliance Navigation	Practical guidance, follow-up, referrals and coordination experienced through the ECD Compliance Task Team and its partners.	Cases 1–5; contrasting compliance outcomes across Cases 1–2 and Cases 3–5.	All five owners described support from the Compliance Task Team or associated partners, including information-sharing workshops, follow-up communication, referrals and assistance with applications. By the October 2020 assessment, Cases 1 and 2 had achieved DSD registration and were receiving government funding, whereas Cases 3–5 still had outstanding compliance requirements. The evidence documents owners’ experiences of support but does not establish that support alone caused the different outcomes.
5. COVID-19 and Operational Vulnerability	Experiences of pandemic-related disruption to center operations, income, enrolment and the compliance process.	Cases 1–5; Cases 1–2 versus Cases 3–5 illustrate differences in access to government funding.	All five owners described operational challenges associated with COVID-19, including income losses, reduced enrolment and additional costs associated with reopening. Cases 1 and 2 reported that government subsidies helped them meet certain expenses, including staff costs during lockdown. Cases 3–5 continued to face outstanding compliance requirements, alongside pandemic-related financial pressures and operational constraints. Case 3 also described delays to DSD registration and receiving assistance with personal protective equipment (PPE) to support reopening.

3.1. Entering ECD Through Community Need, Care and Livelihood Necessity

Across the five cases, participants described entering ECD provision through a combination of community childcare needs, personal commitment to children and livelihood necessity. A central question emerging across the cases was therefore not simply why participants entered the ECD sector, but rather how an initially informal, care-oriented activity develop into an increasingly established enterprise that subsequently had to meet formal regulatory requirements. Care was an important component of these narratives, but it was not the only motivation. Some participants described beginning as informal day mothers or providing care from their homes before gradually increasing enrolment in response to demand. Others explicitly linked entry into ECD to unemployment or the need to generate an income. Another participant described responding to the presence of children in need in her community. Furthermore, the participant described beginning with four children in her home and gradually expanding in response to requests from parents. Another began as a day mother and initially understood her activity as helping parents who were working. Case 2 explained, “I thought I was just helping parents who were going to work. I didn’t know that I had already become an ECD center”. In another case, the owner described starting the center after being unemployed while also responding to the presence of orphaned children in her community. These accounts suggest that several owners initially understood their activities primarily as providing care rather than as operating formal enterprises.

Across all five cases, participants described entering the ECD sector because they genuinely cared about children’s wellbeing in their communities. Furthermore, the ECD center owners saw their services as a necessity and a community need, rather than formal businesses that serve their own needs. Because of these motivations, obtaining legal registration for their ECD centers was the least of their concern. Participants described starting their ECD centers informally, often from their own homes because they wanted to help.

These accounts suggest that entry into ECD was not uniformly a rejection or lack of concern for formal compliance. Rather, compliance was often not part of participants’ initial understanding of the activity. Several participants described beginning on a small, informal scale and subsequently expanding as demand increased. For example, one participant initially cared for four children and later expanded as referrals increased, while another grew from five children to a much larger operation.

“When I started, I never thought about compliance. I only thought about the children and making sure they were safe and developed.”

(Case 1)

3.2. Material and Financial Barriers to Compliance

Material and financial constraints were evident across the five cases, although the specific challenges differed. Challenges experienced were particularly in relation to building plans, structural improvements, space requirements and the costs associated with regulatory compliance. Participants described using personal resources to finance improvements and, in some cases, making significant changes to their household arrangements to accommodate the ECD center. Another participant described not making sufficient profit because fees from parents had to cover food, electricity and staff payment; however, she organized fundraising activities and participated in an ECD forum.

Building-plan approval was another recurring difficulty. Participants described repeated submissions, costs associated with revisions and delays in obtaining approval. One participant said that her building plans had been rejected repeatedly and that she had considered abandoning the process. Another had to raise money to address outstanding infrastructure requirements, paying for revised building plans and later paying fees associated with releasing the approved plans. Additionally, some participants described costs associated with modifying the center to accommodate toilets for children with disabilities. These accounts show that compliance costs extended beyond application fees to include infrastructure, household adjustments and repeated technical work. Case 4 explained, “Every time the plans came back rejected, it cost money. At some point I thought of giving up.”

These experiences were not identical across cases. Some participants eventually obtained the required approvals after making substantial personal financial investments, while others remained unable to complete requirements because of their costs. The material burden of compliance therefore differed according to the regulatory requirement faced by each center and the owner’s ability to finance the required changes. Some participants did not simply respond passively to these constraints. They mobilized household resources, community relationships and peer networks to continue operating and to meet regulatory requirements. Compliance was therefore simultaneously experienced as a financial burden and as an investment in the longer-term development and formalization of the ECD enterprise.

3.3. Navigating Administrative Complexity, Uncertainty and Emotional Strain

Participants did not experience administrative interactions in the same way. Some participants described the compliance process as involving multiple administrative requirements and interactions with different municipal and government officials. Several participants recalled receiving instructions to make changes to their centers without initially understanding the broader compliance pathway or the reasons for requirements. For example, Case 3 mentioned, “I was willing to do whatever I was told to do by the environmental health [officials], but they would just say do this without explaining why. This has serious financial implications on my side.” Other participants described being informed that their centers were operating illegally or that structural changes were required, while experiencing uncertainty about where to submit documents or which requirement needed to be addressed next. One participant described repeatedly receiving rejected building plans without initially understanding the reason for the rejection. These experiences were associated with frustration and financial pressure because each additional requirement could require further expenditure. Participants consistently described the compliance process as confusing, difficult, and emotionally exhausting. Interactions with municipal workers before the engagement of the Compliance Task Team were often experienced as penalizing rather than supportive.

In contrast, participants’ accounts reveal two contrasting routes through which they attempted to understand compliance: peer-to-peer learning within the ECD sector and top-down information provided by government officials and the Compliance Task Team. The peer network provided an important source of practical knowledge, but participants did not always receive the information they needed from other operators. One participant explained to have actively approached the nearby ECD principals to learn how to develop her center but described that the other principal did not provide clear information about operating an ECD center. She recalled receiving clear guidance from a Department of Social Development social worker, who explained the number of children in her care meant that she was considered an ECD center and provided practical advice about improving the safety of the premises and applying for registration.

One participant described that environmental health officials informed her about requirements such as toilets, a health certificate and DSD registration but that she was not given clear information about where to obtain the required information or which documents to submit. Case 3 explains, “I was willing to fix things, but no one explained why. It had serious financial implications for me.”. Similarly, another participant described repeated rejection of building plans without understanding the reasons for rejection. She later received an explanation that the plans did not include toilets for children with disabilities. Repeated inspections without clear guidance generated fear, frustration, and anxiety.

This divergent account is important because it suggests that participants’ experiences of frontline administration were not uniformly negative. Rather, experiences varied according to the official encountered, the type of requirement involved and the extent to which information was explained in an accessible manner. The issue emerging across the cases was therefore less the absence of all administrative support and more the uneven accessibility and coordination of information across the compliance pathway.

Beyond structural and geographical constraints, participants’ accounts also reveal individual and organizational barriers. Owners were responsible simultaneously for childcare, staffing, food provision, finances and compliance administration, limiting the time available to manage lengthy regulatory processes. Some requirements also involved technical knowledge, particularly building plans and infrastructure standards, that participants did not initially possess. At the organizational level, the centers were small owner-managed enterprises, meaning that compliance activities were often concentrated in the hands of the same individual responsible for daily operations. Repeated applications and requests for additional documentation therefore created an administrative burden that had to be absorbed alongside the provision of childcare.

3.4. Intermediary Support as Experienced by ECD Center Owners

All five participants described the ECD Compliance Task Team and its partners as sources of practical guidance, referrals, follow-up communication and technical assistance. The original project report documents support provided to ECD center owners in understanding application requirements, navigating municipal processes and addressing technical issues identified during inspections. Some participants described progressing through regulatory stages while receiving this support, whereas others continued to face outstanding requirements. These accounts suggest that intermediary support was experienced as a resource for navigating the compliance process. Case 2 described the Braamfontein workshop as an important source of information about the compliance process: “Braamfontein changed my life and my journey in developing my business.” Another participant described receiving step-by-step guidance on land-use requirements and being linked to the KYB incubator to address issues identified during the health and safety process, while another reported that regular follow-up calls helped her continue with document submissions. Participants generally described this support positively, although one participant also expressed frustration regarding the expectations placed on her to complete actions that had financial implications. However, another participant recalled that the workshop in Braamfontein clarified the compliance process, while another described regular follow-up calls concerning outstanding documentation. The project report also records instances in which participants were referred to the KYB/Hollard incubator for assistance with structural requirements.

Some participants described that the support they received included step-by-step guidance, regular follow-ups, document clarification, and coordination across departments. One participant described that linkages to the Kago Ya Bana/Hollard incubator were perceived to be significant in addressing structural barriers: Case 2 mentioned, “They kept calling me, checking if I had submitted my documents. Without that, I would have given up. They helped fix what the health officer pointed out. After that, my permit was approved.”

However, support did not result in the same compliance outcome for all five cases. At the time of the interviews, two centers had achieved DSD registration and funding, while three continued to have outstanding requirements. One participant remained in the DSD registration process, another had a pending health permit, and another had outstanding building-plan requirements. Particularly, Case 3 described being supported over several years but also indicated that, at times, she felt that the follow-up process did not fully recognize the financial difficulties she was experiencing. Despite receiving support and eventually obtaining approval of her building plans in February 2020, her DSD registration remained incomplete at the time of the interview. The cases do not allow us to determine whether the intervention caused improvements in compliance. Rather, participants described the support as helping them understand the compliance process and, in some cases, reported progressing through regulatory stages while receiving this support. These accounts do not establish that the support caused the reported progress. However, the study cannot establish whether the support caused the reported progress, nor can it explain why the centers reached different compliance outcomes. Such outcomes may reflect the different requirements facing individual centers, their financial and infrastructural circumstances, and other factors that were not systematically examined. The findings should therefore be interpreted as evidence of participants’ experiences of support, rather than as an evaluation of its effectiveness.

3.5. COVID-19 and Intensified Operational Vulnerability

All participants described COVID-19 as an additional disruption to already financially constrained ECD centers. The original project report records that all five operators discussed the effects of the pandemic, including closure, reduced enrolment and additional costs associated with COVID-19 operating requirements. Four of the five participants reported having reopened by the time the original study was carried out, while one center remained closed because its compliance status prevented reopening.

The experience of income loss was described across the cases. One participant reported having no income for approximately five months during the lockdown period. Another described the interruption of her DSD registration process during lockdown and the financial consequences of having no income.

There was also variation in access to government funding. Two of the cases had obtained DSD registration and funding before the pandemic. One participant explicitly described the subsidy as enabling her to continue paying staff during lockdown, while another funded participant similarly described that the funding assisted her center during the closure period. In contrast, a participant whose center was still navigating the registration process perceived that funded centers were better able to sustain themselves during lockdown. Case 3 reported that “Others survived because they were funded. For me, everything stopped.” This account reflects the participant’s perception of the relationship between registration, funding and financial security; the study did not collect center-level income or expenditure data and therefore cannot establish the magnitude or causal effect of this difference.

COVID-19 therefore functioned in participants’ accounts as an additional stressor that interrupted compliance processes, reduced enrolment and generated new operating costs. The available evidence supports a description of differential experiences of access to funding, rather than a conclusion that compliance itself protected centers from the economic effects of the pandemic.

New health protocols introduced additional financial strain:

“The COVID regulations became another compliance problem, but this time we had no money.”

(Case 5)

Despite these challenges, participants emphasized resilience, adaptability, and the importance of continued support to remain operational.

3.6. Convergence and Divergence Across Cases

The cross-case analysis identified substantial convergence as well as important differences. All five participants described challenges associated with the material costs of compliance and reported engagement with the Compliance Task Team. However, the cases differed in their motivations for entering ECD provision, experiences of frontline officials, regulatory progress and access to government funding.

The accounts also provide several important qualifications to the dominant patterns. Entry into ECD was not motivated exclusively by care: livelihood necessity and unemployment were explicitly described in some cases. Similarly, interactions with government officials were not uniformly negative; one participant recalled receiving clear and practical guidance from a Department of Social Development social worker at an earlier stage of her ECD journey.

Finally, although all participants described receiving support from the Compliance Task Team, this support did not correspond to uniform completion of the compliance process. At the time of data collection, two centers had achieved registration and funding while three continued to have outstanding requirements. These divergences indicate that the findings should be understood as patterned experiences across five cases rather than as a single uniform experience of ECD center owners.

4. Discussion

This study examined ECD center owners’ experiences of the streamlined compliance process in the Johannesburg municipality, with the aim of understanding how regulatory compliance is perceived and implemented at the ECD center level. Overall, the results suggest that although the streamlined compliance process was intended to simplify regulatory requirements, owners continue to encounter several challenges. The five key themes that emerged from the analysis include (1) entering ECD through community need, care and livelihood necessity; (2) material and financial barriers to compliance; (3) navigating administrative complexity, uncertainty and emotional strain; (4) intermediary support as experienced by ECD center owners; and (5) COVID-19 and intensified operational vulnerability.

The experiences of the five ECD center owners need to be understood within the broader national ECD policy environment, but the two levels should not be treated as equivalent. At the national level, ECD policy has increasingly emphasized registration, quality assurance and improved coordination across government. At the local level, however, participants’ accounts show how these objectives were translated into a series of practical requirements involving land-use, building plans, health permits, fire and safety procedures and DSD registration. The distinction is important because a policy objective that appears administratively straightforward at the national level may involve multiple sequential interactions for an individual ECD center owner (Nharara and Ndlovu 2025). The Johannesburg cases illustrate this translation from policy to practice. Owners did not encounter “compliance” as a single procedure; they encountered a series of interdependent requirements, departments and decisions. This helps explain why some participants could make progress on several requirements while still having outstanding components of the overall process. The comparison also suggests that barriers cannot be attributed solely to geography or poverty. Financial resources mattered, but so did access to information, technical knowledge, time, administrative capacity and the ability to coordinate multiple requirements. In his analysis, Ally (2023) argues that after the development of South Africa’s constitution, the ECD sector in South Africa had become over-regulated. Evidence from the literature shows that delays in processing center registrations could be attributed to limited staff capacity, staff shortages, and heavy workloads. He further argues that if the rules of operating an ECD center remain too complicated, then centers in poor areas will not be able to follow all of them. This means ECD centers will either remain uncompliant or may choose to shutdown, which will reduce access to ECD services for children and increase parental stress as parents will have limited childcare options (Ally 2023).

The five owners described how they experienced and navigated compliance, and they perceived the Task Team as one source of support within that process. Owners’ narratives revealed a deep sense of ethical responsibility toward children, often prioritizing service delivery over their personal wellbeing or financial security. For example, one operator had to move their own family from the main house so she could operate her ECD center. Also, for other owners, they saw running an ECD center as “just” helping, which showed a great sense of responsibility to the community they served. Participants’ accounts suggest that entry into ECD provision reflected overlapping motivations rather than mutually exclusive choices between community care and economic necessity. Some owners described a commitment to supporting children and responding to unmet childcare needs in their communities, while others explicitly connected their entry into the sector to unemployment and the need to generate income. These motivations often coexisted: providing a valued community service could also represent a livelihood strategy, although low fees, operating costs and regulatory expenditure constrained the financial sustainability of some centers. The findings also indicate that owners’ engagement with formalization developed over time as they encountered regulatory requirements, obtained information and assessed the resources needed to meet them. The evidence does not establish that registration was initially a low priority for participants; rather, it illustrates how care commitments, income needs and the practical demands of formalization intersected in their accounts of operating ECD centers.

The participants’ experiences of interacting with frontline officials can also be interpreted using Lipsky’s (1980) theory of street-level bureaucracy. Participants described differences in how requirements were explained, communicated and followed up. Some recalled receiving clear guidance, while others described repeated requests or decisions that were difficult to understand. These accounts indicate that participants experienced administrative encounters differently. However, because municipal officials were not interviewed and administrative decisions were not directly observed, the study cannot establish whether these differences resulted from the exercise of official discretion. Street-level bureaucracy is therefore used here as a sensitizing framework for understanding how formal requirements were experienced at the point of interaction between ECD center owners and municipal officials, rather than as an explanation of why particular centers achieved different compliance outcomes.

According to Gontsana (2025), ECD practitioners face systemic barriers, including administrative requirements which are confusing to navigate. In this study, some ECD center owners reported receiving support from officials who were quite supportive and guided them in the compliance application process. However, some owners have come across officials who strictly enforced compliance requirements or delayed approvals. Lipsky’s theory of street-level bureaucracy helps us understand these differences on why some centers progress to being compliant while others remain uncompliant. Municipal officials responsible for functions such as environmental health, land-use management, building control and fire safety are street-level bureaucrats. This also highlights that the implementation of compliance processes may at times be inconsistent and unclear (Lipsky 1980). Administrative burden provides a second lens for understanding the costs that participants experienced while navigating the compliance process. It has been conceptualized in terms of learning, compliance and psychological costs in interactions with the state (Moynihan et al. 2015). In this study, learning costs relate to the effort required to understand requirements and identify where documents should be submitted; compliance costs include fees, building plans, structural modifications, documentation and time; and psychological costs include frustration, uncertainty and stress associated with repeated requirements and delays. ECD centers operate within a regulatory environment in which municipal requirements relating to land-use, building plans, health, fire and safety, and registration create formal pressures to comply with established standards. Another study in South Africa mentioned the need of support from the state, which they believed could better the conditions of their ECD centers to meet the regulatory standards (Fonsén et al. 2025).

A common challenge is that, often, these ECD centers are providing services to low-income settings, characterized by high poverty, unemployment rates and a dependency on social protection programs such as “the child support grant” (Holness and Clark 2025; Sello 2025). Additionally, the rules for running ECD centers, especially those about buildings, land-use, and infrastructure, assume that centers have money, secure property, and technical knowledge. But many owners in poorer areas do not have these resources unlike owners who are able to comply. Moreover, studies in South Africa also found that ECD centers often rely on parental fees to operate, which sometimes parents cannot afford (Ashley-Cooper et al. 2019; Kika Mistry and Wills 2023; Sello et al. 2023; Vorster et al. 2016). An additional dimension emerging from the cases is the gradual transformation of the ECD center owners from informal caregivers into operators of established community-based enterprises. However, a study conducted in rural areas argued that owners of ECD centers need to take responsibility in ensuring compliance of their ECD centers. This involves contacting the local municipality offices for information, asking for help when in need, and researching on the registration requirements (Fonsén et al. 2025). Similarly, studies conducted in rural South Africa highlight the need for ECD center owners to move beyond perceptions of disempowerment and assume greater leadership and accountability in complying with regulatory processes to ensure ECD center registration (Fonsén et al. 2025; Nharara and Ndlovu 2025; Sello et al. 2024). Peer networks also contributed to this development. Participants joined ECD forums to learn from other operators, exchange information and identify strategies for generating additional resources. Case 4 described learning from other ECD operators and participating in fundraising activities, while Case 2 actively sought information from neighboring ECD principals about how to develop her center. ECD center owners have had to make their own plans or come up with customized solutions to remain operational and continue to deliver services. This approach to problem solving is common among the five cases in this study. These findings are in line with another study involving 73 ECD sites in Ekurhuleni municipality in South Africa, where women have learned to develop their own localized solutions to the systemic barriers and government-related challenges to improve the quality of their ECD services (Martin et al. 2025). These activities indicate that owners develop forms of practical leadership through managing their centers, mobilizing resources and responding to the needs of families in their communities.

Evidence from the City of Cape Town, South Africa, showed that more than half of ECD centers in Cape Town were unregistered and could not access the ZAR 24 (USD 1.4) a child-a-day government subsidy per child (Gontsana 2025). The findings of this study show evidence on the fragmentation of services at the local level of government departments in South Africa. ECD center owners were required to navigate many departments, including environmental health, land-use management, building control, and social development, without a clear integrated pathway to the compliance processes. Before the ECD center owners started working with the Compliance Task Team, their interactions with officials felt negative and unhelpful. The process seemed like they were being punished, the rules were applied differently each time, and it was not clear what was required. The lack of clear, accessible information created what has been described as an “administrative burden” (Alizadeh et al. 2025), characterized by learning costs, compliance costs, and psychological costs. In this study, these burdens are manifested as repeated plan rejections, prolonged delays, fear of closure, and emotional exhaustion. Importantly, these costs were carried almost entirely by individual ECD center owners, rather than being reduced or supported by institutions. The findings illustrate how ECD center owners experienced intermediary support while navigating interconnected municipal and provincial regulatory requirements. Participants described guidance, referrals, follow-up communication and technical assistance as useful resources during the compliance process. However, the study does not establish the effectiveness of these forms of assistance or explain the differences in compliance outcomes across the five cases. Its contribution lies in documenting how administrative requirements, material constraints, livelihood pressures and support arrangements intersected in owners’ accounts of formalizing their ECD services.

The participants perceived the support as helping to clarify compliance requirements, especially for ECD center owners who had limited knowledge of bureaucratic processes, highlighting the need for institutional support mechanisms that recognize the different needs and constraints that owners face. In this study, participants perceived that the ECD Compliance Task Team was able to help with explaining the complex requirements of compliance; it coordinated processes across departments and provided ongoing support to ECD center owners. In South Africa, evidence suggests that non-state organizations such as SmartStart, Ilifa Labantwana, Center for Early Childhood Development and real reform for ECD have taken an initiative to promote information about regulatory compliance processes and bridge the gap between the Department of Basic Education and ECD center owners (Bridge et al. 2020; CECD 2022; Ilifa labantwana 2021; SmartStart 2020). This aligns with emerging literature on collaborative and enabling governance, which emphasizes facilitation, coordination, and trust-building over enforcement alone (Wang and Ran 2023).

The economic shock from the COVID-19 pandemic caused additional stress and anxiety among ECD center owners. Notably, the long-term closures due to the lockdown regulations exposed the vulnerabilities of the sector (Wills et al. 2020; Van Lancker and Parolin 2020).

At the same time, new health regulations imposed additional unfunded mandates on already strained providers, highlighting the tension between safeguarding children’s health and sustaining service provision. The findings support potential improvements in accessible information, interdepartmental coordination, application feedback, referral mechanisms and technical assistance because these were directly described in the participants’ accounts. The study provides a contextualized account of how ECD center owners experience and navigate interconnected regulatory requirements at the local level and identifies potential areas for comparative research concerning administrative burden, intermediary support, peer networks and owner-level organizational capacity. An important area for further research is how municipal compliance systems can reduce administrative barriers while maintaining the substantive standards required to protect children. This study did not assess the technical or regulatory necessity of individual requirements relating to health, infrastructure, accessibility or fire safety. Future research could examine these requirements in greater detail and consider how administrative processes could be simplified without compromising the safety and wellbeing of children attending ECD centers.

Limitations

The study is based on a small purposively selected sample of five ECD center owners within a single metropolitan municipality and was designed to provide detailed case-based insight rather than statistical generalization. The interviews were conducted in October 2020 and included retrospective accounts of participants’ experiences before and during the COVID-19 lockdown. Recall and temporal effects may therefore have influenced some accounts. Furthermore, the original study did not systematically collect detailed demographic information such as participants’ ages, educational attainment and staffing profiles, limiting the extent to which differences in these characteristics could be examined. Deductive identification cannot be completely excluded because the study involved a small number of ECD operators who were engaged with a known municipal initiative. Individuals familiar with the original project may be able to recognize experiences even after direct identifiers have been removed. We therefore excluded non-essential case characteristics and avoided reporting combinations of characteristics that were not necessary for the analysis. The interviews were conducted in isiZulu and Sesotho and translated for analysis. Although the lead researcher was familiar with the languages used and the context of the interviews, translation may have resulted in the loss of some linguistic or cultural meanings. Direct quotations were therefore checked against the available interview material during analysis. Moreover, the study did not collect comparable center-level income and expenditure. Finally, the study was commissioned within a partnership involving Kago Ya Bana and the City of Johannesburg ECD Compliance Task Team. Although participants’ accounts included criticism and descriptions of difficulties with the compliance process, this institutional context may have influenced participation and reporting. An important limitation is that all five cases were already engaged with the municipal Compliance Task Team. Consequently, the study does not capture the experiences of ECD center owners who were unable to access the initiative, disengaged from the compliance process, closed their centers, or experienced unsuccessful engagement with the Task Team. Their perspectives were not captured. Additionally, the study did not include a comparison group, pre-intervention counterfactual or independent sample of non-participating ECD center owners and therefore cannot establish causal Program effectiveness. The findings should therefore be interpreted as accounts of owners who had some level of engagement with a municipal support mechanism rather than as evidence of the experiences of all ECD center owners in Johannesburg. While this enables in-depth insight into lived experiences, findings are not statistically generalizable. The study does not assess children’s wellbeing, service quality or the causal effectiveness of the Compliance Task Team. Nevertheless, the study provides analytically rich insights into the intersection of compliance, inequality, and municipal governance in ECD provision.

5. Conclusions

This study examined how ECD center owners in low-income urban communities navigate regulatory compliance within a municipal support framework. The findings show that compliance was experienced as a complex process shaped by financial and infrastructural constraints, administrative requirements, access to information and the everyday demands of operating an ECD center. Participants generally entered ECD provision in response to community childcare needs and, in some cases, livelihood pressures, with compliance becoming a process they navigated as their centers developed. Participants described the ECD Compliance Task Team and partner organizations as useful sources of information, referrals, follow-up and technical support. However, support did not result in uniform compliance outcomes, and several participants continued to have outstanding regulatory requirements at the time of the interviews. The COVID-19 accounts therefore illustrate differences in how participants experienced the pandemic rather than a measurable relationship between compliance status and financial resilience. Participants from the two funded centers reported that government subsidies helped them maintain some expenditure during lockdown, including staff payments, while other participants described substantial income loss and continued compliance-related constraints. These accounts are informative about participants’ experiences but cannot establish that registration or subsidy access caused better financial outcomes. All five participants in this study were women. Their accounts included substantial financial, household and care-related responsibilities; however, the study did not include male ECD center owners and did not systematically examine gender differences. We therefore treat these observations as characteristics of the participating women rather than as evidence of a gender difference. The experiences may be considered alongside the literature on gendered care work, but the present study cannot establish whether the challenges identified are specific to women or are shared by ECD center owners more broadly. Within the five cases, two participants whose centers had obtained registration and accessed subsidies reported that the funding helped them meet some costs during lockdown. Other participants described substantial income loss and continuing compliance challenges. Because comparable financial data were not collected, these accounts should not be interpreted as evidence that registration or subsidy access caused better financial protection. Overall, the findings suggest that compliance should not be seen only as a final requirement, but as a process that needs ongoing support. The experiences described by the five participants suggest that, without adequate support, compliance requirements may present substantial barriers for ECD providers operating in socioeconomically disadvantaged settings. This study contributes case-based account of how ECD center owners experience the practical demands of regulatory compliance in a disadvantaged urban setting. By bringing together street-level bureaucracy and administrative burden, the study shows how formal regulatory requirements are experienced not only as rules to be followed but also as learning, financial, time and psychological demands. The findings also highlight the importance of accessible information and navigation support, while showing that such support does not necessarily result in uniform compliance outcomes. Because the study involved five purposively selected owners already engaged in a municipal support initiative, these findings should be understood as analytically informative rather than representative of all ECD center owners. Further research involving municipal officials, ECD center owners who have not accessed compliance support, and independent measures of center quality and child outcomes would be useful to examine how regulatory systems operate across the wider ECD sector.