Transforming Early Childhood Education in Marginalized Communities: A Critical Evaluation of the PEN Quality Management System Through Decolonial and Participatory Lenses

This article critically evaluates the Provide, Envision, Navigate (PEN) Quality Management System as a decolonial and participatory approach to redefining quality in South African early childhood care and education (ECCE). Responding to the dominance of compliance-driven and developmentalist quality frameworks, the study draws on Ubuntu philosophy, culturally sustaining pedagogy, and participatory action research to examine how quality can be reimagined in marginalized contexts. Engaging educators, caregivers, and communities across six marginalized centres, the study demonstrates that PEN fosters belonging, affirms linguistic and cultural identities, strengthens practitioner agency, and supports locally meaningful change rather than externally benchmarked outcomes. The findings illustrate how participatory evaluation enables communities to co-define quality indicators rooted in relational care, cultural relevance, and epistemic justice. Rather than positioning marginalized centres as sites of deficit, the paper argues that PEN reveals their capacity for innovation and resilience, challenging dominant assumptions embedded in conventional quality assurance regimes. The study contributes to debates on equity, epistemic justice, and alternative frameworks for quality assurance in Global South contexts.