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The Hindu
29-05-2025
- General
- The Hindu
Rewriting the script of early childhood education
'Some kids win the lottery at birth; far too many don't — and most people struggle to catch up,' said the Nobel Laureate Prof. James Heckman. This holds true for India as well where its employment problem is partly a consequence of this 'lottery of birth'. A child born in India has a one-in-five chance of being born into poverty, affecting their health, nutrition, learning and earning potential. Yet, there is a way to beat these odds. From the decision by Uttar Pradesh to hire 11,000 dedicated Early Childhood Care and Education educators for Balavatikas to Odisha launching Shishu Vatikas and Jaduipedi Kits, States in India are showing the way. The Heckman curve was a powerful economic model that provided a simple yet profound insight — of the relationship between age and the rate of return on investments in human capital. Heckman found that every dollar invested in early childhood education yields a return that ranges from $7 to $12, with lasting impacts: children who receive quality early education are four times more likely to have higher earnings and three times more likely to own a home as adults. By age five, many gaps in outcomes — such as earning potential and quality of life — are already evident. Children often struggle throughout life if motivation and learning habits are not nurtured early. Learning outcomes Yet, India's ECE system faces three major challenges. First, children are not receiving sufficient instructional time. Nearly 5.5 crore children between ages three to six are enrolled in 14 lakh operational Anganwadis and 56,000 government pre-primary schools. However, Anganwadi workers spend only 38 minutes per day on preschool instruction, which is far short of the scheduled two hours, and only 9% of pre-primary schools have a dedicated ECE teacher. We are planting trees without the right care to help them grow. The effects are reflected in learning outcomes. The India Early Childhood Education Impact Study found that only 15% of pre-primary children could match basic objects, a skill essential for letter recognition in Class one. Similarly, only 30% could identify larger and smaller numbers, which are foundational for arithmetic. As a result, children often start formal schooling without the skills they need, with many bypassing essential ECE years entirely: 2% of three-year-olds, 5.1% of four-year-olds, and nearly one-fourth of five-year-olds are enrolled directly in Class one. The issue of resources, engaging parents Second, the thoughtful optimisation of resources for early childhood education remains a challenge. The Government of India spends only ₹1,263 a child annually on ECE compared to ₹37,000 a student on school education — largely on producing teaching-learning materials that are often underused. There simply are not enough teachers to implement these resources, and there is a lack of oversight — one supervisor is responsible for monitoring 282 Anganwadis. To improve oversight, we need targeted funding to hire more supervisors and dedicated ECE teachers. These measures, though modest, promise high returns. Uttar Pradesh has now moved ahead on the hiring of nearly 11,000 ECE educators for Balavatikas in all districts. The State also organised a six-day residential training programme for 50 master trainers from 13 districts to train them on ECE pedagogy. Odisha has taken the decision to open Shishu Vatikas in all government schools to make children in the age group five to six school ready. While increased funding would lead to immediate improvements, sustaining these gains depends on engaging parents, and here lies the third challenge. Most parents care deeply about their children's education but may lack guidance on supporting early learning. Empowering parents with simple, effective ECE practices can make a significant difference. For instance, providing worksheets or encouraging their participation in ECE centre activities can deepen their involvement. In Madhya Pradesh, the monthly Bal Choupal programme engages with parents directly by showing them the importance of play-based learning. With smartphone access nearly universal, parental engagement can be further strengthened through WhatsApp or EdTech apps, allowing parents to support their children's development. In perspective Reversing these odds may seem like an uphill battle, but with targeted funding and increased parental involvement, we can provide our children with the foundation they deserve. By 2047, over a billion Indians will enter the global workforce, presenting an unprecedented opportunity to reshape India's role in the world economy. Strategic investments in ECE and engaging parents in their children's learning journey could help 200 million Indians escape the lottery of birth and give today's young learners the chance to become tomorrow's leaders. This is a critical pathway to realising India's vision of becoming a true Vishwa Guru, empowering generations to come. Shaveta Sharma-Kukreja is the Chief Executive Officer and Managing Director at Central Square Foundation. Luis Miranda is the Chairperson and Co-founder of the Indian School of Public Policy and the Chairman of the Centre for Civil Society
Daily Maverick
20-05-2025
- Business
- Daily Maverick
Historic early childhood development investments threatened as Budget withdrawal sparks fears of lost progress
The evidence is clear. Quality early learning programmes deliver a 13% annual return on investment through improved health, education, and employment outcomes. Scaling up ECD would create 300,000 jobs and 70,000 new enterprises, primarily in township and rural communities. Investing in ECD isn't just a moral imperative; it is an economic strategy. In a dramatic turn of events, the Government of National Unity (GNU) has withdrawn the 2025/2026 National Budget, following deep divisions over the proposed VAT increase. As South Africa prepares for a new Budget to be tabled on 21 May 2025, uncertainty looms. For the early childhood development (ECD) sector, the stakes couldn't be higher. For the first time in South Africa's history, the government proposed a historic R10-billion allocation to expand the ECD subsidy, a R210-million increase for ECD infrastructure, and R336-million to extend nutrition support to our youngest citizens. It was a moment that made the sector feel seen, valued, and finally recognised not just in policy, but in practice. But now, with the Budget withdrawn once again, this progress hangs in the balance. The smartest investment South Africa can make The evidence is clear. As Nobel Prize winner James Heckman's work has shown, quality early learning programmes deliver a 13% annual return on investment through improved health, education, and employment outcomes. The Department of Basic Education's (DBE) own 2030 ECD Strategy shows that scaling up ECD would create 300,000 jobs and 70,000 new enterprises, primarily in township and rural communities. Investing in ECD isn't just a moral imperative; it is an economic strategy. ECD investment directly contributes to the GNU's own priorities: driving inclusive growth, reducing poverty, and building a developmental state. Ilifa Labantwana modelling shows that increased ECD funding could: Reduce malnutrition and child poverty. Improve the working conditions of 250,000 largely female ECD workers. Relieve care burdens for more than two million caregivers, unlocking economic participation. Stimulate township and rural economies through infrastructure and programme expenditure. 'This investment would enable us to retain qualified practitioners, maintain resources, and support families through holistic programmes,' said Refilwe Mkhoe from Lusemanzi ECD Centre in Orange Farm. The cost of neglect is far greater Failing to protect this funding now means continuing a generational cycle of poverty. One in four children under five in South Africa is stunted. More than 1.3 million children aged three to five are not in any early learning programme. Most ECD practitioners, many of whom are black women, earn below the minimum wage. Agnes Ramosela, the principal at Tsepiso's Kiddies World Preschool in Lenasia South, said: 'We are not even able to pay ourselves minimum wage. I am currently employing 20 people, mostly young people struggling with employment, and I am sometimes unable to pay them.' Progressive alternatives exist We acknowledge that the removal of the proposed VAT increase has created new fiscal pressures. However, austerity cannot, and must not, come at the expense of young children. Even with our last rand, there is no wiser or more transformative investment than ECD. Rather than cutting these important services, the government must pursue a more sustainable revenue strategy. The Budget Justice Coalition (BJC) has proposed progressive and equitable alternatives to raise revenue without placing additional burdens on poor people. These include implementing a net wealth tax, tackling corporate tax base erosion and profit shifting, reversing unnecessary corporate tax cuts and rebalancing the tax mix, expanding the taxation of luxury goods, among others. The South African Revenue Service has also suggested investment in improving compliance and collection efficiency as a revenue generating mechanism. These measures align with our Constitution's call for equity and social justice, and they can support sustainable investment in key services like ECD. The time is now We call on the GNU to protect, not reverse, the R10-billion subsidy expansion, the R210-million infrastructure investment, and the R336-million increased nutrition support. These are not optional line items. They are the building blocks of a thriving nation. In March this year, at the ECD Leadership Summit, President Cyril Ramaphosa issued a heartfelt apology, saying: 'it was a mistake not to invest in ECD 30 years ago'. He is right. And now, we have a second chance. We urge all political parties in the GNU, and Minister of Finance Enoch Godongwana, to keep young children at the centre of South Africa's development agenda. ECD must remain a non-negotiable. DM Tshepo Mantjé is the Right to ECD Coordinator at Equality Collective and the Real Reform for ECD Movement Coordinator. Daniel McLaren is a Public Finance Economist at Ilifa Labantwana. Hopolang Selebalo is Head of Policy and Research at SmartStart South Africa and Chairperson of the Real Reform for ECD Steering Committee.
Yahoo
16-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Why I Was Wrong About Head Start
One should always be open to reevaluating long-held beliefs—and an especially good time to reevaluate them is when a guy with a Nobel Prize in the relevant subject tells you that you've got it wrong. In at least a half a dozen articles and speeches, probably more, I have repeated something that I've understood to be a well-established fact for so long that I do not even remember when or where I first learned it: that Head Start does not work, that it provides no meaningful lasting results. Professor James Heckman of the University of Chicago, inconveniently enough for my longstanding belief, not only was awarded the Nobel Prize in economics (that is, the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel, as Jay Nordlinger taught me) but was so honored specifically for his work on developing rigorous methods for the evaluation of social programs. I do not immediately knuckle under to appeals to authority, but I am inclined to listen to guys who have equations named after them. Speaking at the Old Parkland Conference at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington this week, Heckman insisted—and not for the first time—that the mostly conservative critics of Head Start have it wrong, and that conclusions about the program's ineffectiveness are based on bad information. (The Old Parkland Conference is a recurring symposium on black socioeconomic mobility and related subjects, inspired by Thomas Sowell's 1980 Fairmont Conference. Old Parkland, where the first meeting was held, is the Dallas office campus owned by Harlan Crow, a longtime AEI trustee and financial supporter of the conference who is, I should note in the interest of full disclosure, an investor in The Dispatch and, more important, my friend.) Heckman, who does not want for confidence in his convictions, rejects the notion that randomized trials should be understood as the 'gold standard' and mocks those who believe otherwise as a 'cult.' But, as he tells the story, even if we were to accept the primacy of randomized trials here, we'd want them to be good randomized trials. 'This all really comes from one experiment,' he says, referring to the 2005 Head Start Impact Study. 'Students were randomized out of Head Start, and the ones randomized out were the control group. But what were they randomized out into?' Head Start, and pre-K education more generally, is a varied and decentralized enterprise, and many of the students randomized out of Head Start in the experiment in question ended up attending other Head Start programs or other kinds of preschool. 'Some of them went to Head Start elsewhere. Some of them went to something better.' Better data from a better sample produces different results—results that point to a different outcome about Head Start's efficacy. 'I don't love Head Start,' Heckman says. 'There are better ways to do it. But the notion that it just doesn't work at all isn't supported by the evidence.' I asked Heckman if the focus on randomized experimental data was another example of the hard-science envy among economists noted by F.A. Hayek in his Nobel Prize lecture on 'the pretense of knowledge,' as he put it. 'That's it, yes,' he said. Heckman's work has focused in part on the Perry Preschool Project, which was (ahem!) a randomized study of children 'treated' with preschool in the 1960s—long ago enough that we have a great deal of information not only about their life outcomes but also those of their children. Heckman's research summary reports: Children treated with early childhood education have significantly better life outcomes than the untreated children. Treatment in Perry significantly increased the participants' employment, health, cognitive and socioemotional skills and reduced the male participants' criminal activity, especially violent crime. Improvements in childhood home environments and parental attachment are seen as an important source of the long-term benefits of the program. . . . The children of participants were less likely to be suspended from school, and more likely to complete regular or any other form of high school and to be employed full-time with some college experience. While present for both male and female children of participants, the wide range of beneficial effects are particularly strong for the male children of participants, especially those of male participants. Good preschool programs, in Heckman's telling, give students some of the same things they get from good parenting: attention, examples to learn from, mental stimulation, etc. It is these things that matter, not whether the benefits are transmitted through a federally supported program. I thought of an observation from Yale psychologist Paul Bloom made on a recent episode of The Remnant podcast: On average, people with psychological problems do better with therapy than without therapy—so, in that sense, therapy works. But there does not seem to be much difference in terms of patient outcomes between different therapeutic methods and techniques—rather, outcomes seem to vary most strongly by therapist. In that sense, it would be less accurate to say that this or that form of therapy works than that this or that therapist produces good results. We might expect to see something similar when it comes to preschool education. And that would fit in with the evidence we have from K-12 education, which suggests that of all the in-school factors that shape educational outcomes, teacher quality matters most: 'When it comes to student performance on reading and math tests, teachers are estimated to have two to three times the effect of any other school factor, including services, facilities, and even leadership,' as one RAND report put it. The Trump administration has been making desultory war on Head Start even as the lunatic who runs the Department of Health and Human Services, conspiracy quack Robert F. Kennedy Jr., assures Congress that funding for the program will not be cut, and that the recent financial chaos in the program was not the work of the Trump administration (which, in reality, has suggested eliminating the program entirely) but rather that of disgruntled employees 'who wanted to make the Trump administration look bad.' The question of whether early-childhood education works is separate from the question of whether a federal program is the best way to go about providing it, which is again separate from the question of whether this federal program is the best way to go about providing it. My best guesses right now would be: yes, no, and no—and if I were a policymaker looking for advice on the question, I'd be more interested in James Heckman's views than in those of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and those in his wobbly, messy orbit. And as for my earlier views on the subject of early-childhood education: I think I stand corrected—but I may be wrong about that.
Yahoo
02-05-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
Why Nebraskans keep standing up for Head Start
Head Start helps thousands of Nebraskans access quality child care. (Stock photo by) As the recipient of Nebraska's largest Early Head Start-Child Care Partnership grant, we've made a promise: to show up with care, consistency and compassion, especially when families face the toughest of times. Our work with CRCC, CSI, Educare Lincoln and Educare of Omaha, Inc., brings more than 200 combined years of experience in serving Nebraska's children and their families. The federally funded Head Start program is part of that promise, one that has received bipartisan support year after year. But in recent weeks, news broke about a federal budget proposal that would zero out funding for Head Start in 2026. It is impossible to state the impact this move would have on nearly 800,000 children and their families nationwide. Congress has the power to decide what gets funded and what doesn't. That's where we need to act. In Nebraska, Head Start funding supports the capacity for 5,653 eligible children, employing 2,187 staff in 179 child care centers across the state. These are not just numbers. These are real Nebraska children and families with real futures. And now, the funding to support them is at real risk. For 60 years, this nationally recognized, locally rooted program has given our most vulnerable children a safe, developmentally rich environment to learn and grow while their parents work to achieve economic self-sufficiency. The National Head Start Association's 2025 Nebraska Head Start Profile shows that 4,137 parents of enrolled children were employed, in school or in job training, which would not be possible without reliable child care through Head Start. Protecting Head Start is essential to the well-being of children, families, and communities. Any move away from this risks consequences we can't afford. We don't use these words lightly. Head Start is a vital foundation for families working to build a better future. It offers reliable support for parents and strong, nurturing early education for children — along with meals, vision and hearing screenings, developmental assessments, and dental care. Protecting Head Start means preserving stability, opportunity and access to care for at-risk children and over a million parents who rely on it to stay in the workforce. Communities nationwide depend on it as a cornerstone of their child and family support systems. Head Start works. Not because it's easy — but because it's essential. It's a federal program with decades of data, bipartisan support and consistent, community-driven results. It combines local donations with state and federal funds to provide exactly what Nebraska families need: dependable, comprehensive quality child care. Given Head Start's proven return and essential impact, the conversations in Congress and in our communities should be about increasing funding, not eliminating it. The return on investment is clear. Nobel Laureate economist James Heckman found that every dollar invested in quality early childhood programs like Head Start returns more than seven dollars in reduced crime, improved health and increased earnings. Supporting Head Start is not just a moral imperative. It's a smart economic one. How much does the country invest? Head Start funding accounts for 0.18% of the FY2024 federal budget. Head Start funding strengthens our work as long-standing early childhood partners in Nebraska. We know these families. We work alongside them. We see the deep commitment to their children and their dreams for their families' futures, many of which would not be possible without help from Head Start. As a state that values hard work, personal responsibility and community, Nebraskans should encourage congressional support for this invaluable program. When we talk about Nebraska family values, we do not abandon our youngest citizens when they need us most. We call on our elected officials, neighbors, friends and fellow Nebraskans — from Lincoln to Scottsbluff, Omaha to Ogallala — to speak up. Let your voice be heard. Speak up. Share this message. Remind Washington that Nebraska protects its children. Let's ensure that, as Head Start celebrates 60 years of impact this May, the gift we give back is unwavering support. Because when we invest in children, we invest in us all. Sarah Ann Kotchian is chief executive officer of the Nebraska Early Childhood Collaborative. She has served on local and state commissions, task forces and boards.
Yahoo
06-04-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Florida benefits by investing in preschool programs
The foundation of a child's future success begins long before they enter a traditional classroom. High-quality preschool programs are one of the most effective investments we can make in our children, our workforce and our economy. This legislative session, our state representatives have an opportunity to further enhance our state's commitment to this high yield investment by funding preschool for a full day. Research shows Pre-K programs shape a child's cognitive and social development, setting the stage for lifelong learning and achievement. A study known as the Perry Preschool Project provides compelling evidence that children attending Pre-K have higher high school completion rates, increased college enrollment and better academic performance compared to those who did not attend Pre-K. And the benefits extend well into adulthood: participants of the project were found to have higher employment rates and earnings, reduced criminal activity and better health outcomes in their later years. These findings underscore the lasting impact of early childhood education on an individual's life trajectory. Beyond the classroom, the benefits extend to families, businesses and the economy as a whole: access to affordable child care allows parents to stay in the workforce, reduces absenteeism for employers and strengthens the long-term labor market. The escalating costs of child care have become a significant barrier for many families, often consuming a substantial portion of household income. According to the Economic Policy Institute, the average annual cost of full-time child care in Florida for a four-year-old is $7,287. This financial strain can lead to reduced workforce participation, particularly among mothers, thereby limiting family earnings, stability and economic growth. Employers also feel the repercussions of inadequate child care support which can contribute to employee turnover and decreased productivity. The return on investment in early education is undeniable: Nobel Prize-winning economist James Heckman has demonstrated that every dollar invested in high-quality preschool yields an average ROI of $7 through increased earnings, reduced crime and lower reliance on social services. These savings benefit taxpayers and contribute to a healthier, more prosperous society. Florida has made significant investments in early childhood education through programs like the Voluntary Prekindergarten Education Program (VPK), which offers free Pre-K to all four-year-olds in the state. This program aims to enhance children's readiness for school by focusing on foundational skills in literacy, math and social development. However, the school year VPK program provides instruction for only three hours a day, leaving parents with a difficult choice: either pay for aftercare, which is often unaffordable, or forego employment opportunities so they can pick up their children in the middle of the workday and care for them. As members of the ELC of Sarasota County Childcare Business Task Force, we believe that investing in full-day VPK – at adequate reimbursement rates – is not only beneficial for individual families but is also essential for sustaining economic vitality. Affordable child care supports parental employment, enhances productivity and yields substantial returns that strengthen our economy. We call on our local delegation to prioritize funding for early education programs, including full-day VPK, in order to foster a robust future. This piece was jointly authored by the following: Sarasota County School Board Member Liz Barker Ashley Brown, CEO, Women's Resource Center Sarasota County Schools Superintendent Terry Connor Sarasota County School Board Tom Edwards Janet Kahn, CEO, Early Learning Coalition of Sarasota County Brittany Lamont, CEO, Lakewood Ranch Business Alliance Kirsten Russell, vice president/community impact, Community Foundation of Sarasota County This article originally appeared on Sarasota Herald-Tribune: Invest in Florida's preschool programs | Opinion
