Building better futures: What it means when a nation invests in its children

Educating for Growth

We used to believe that the economic benefits of school improvement were not worth the political costs. Schools are difficult places to change and school systems even harder, the gain not worth the pain. The evidence says otherwise. There is an emerging consensus that the gains from school improvement in developing countries can be significant. These nations are improving their schools to enhance skills and employability and to cut economic inequalities, and it's happening across the globe.

We used to believe that the economic benefits of building the supply-side were not worth the political costs. Demand management deals with short-term politics whereas supply-side economics deals with long-run growth; the economic gain is not worth the political risk. The evidence says otherwise. The gains from long-run growth are significant: "Welfare gains from better long-run, supply-side policies exceed, by far, the potential from further improvements in short-run demand management." (source: R Lucas, Nobel Prize-winning economist, 2003).

We now believe that the most effective investment comes through educating for growth, specifically through targeting resources in the early years of education (pre-primary), as a foundation for developing a nation's human capital in, long-term.

State of the Nation

Bangladesh has made impressive progress in the last decade. Pre-primary education (PPE) at age-five plus is now widely available, with every state primary required to provide a pre-primary class. Next step to make attendance mandatory – figures from the Department of Primary Education (DPE) show significant growth in grade one students receiving PPE: from 50% in 2012 to 93% in 2018 (source: DPE, Annual Sector Performance Report of 2019).

Progress in developing the curriculum, preparing learning resources and in teacher recruitment and training show additional gains. Scope for further improvement lies in three areas: provision of attractive and dedicated learning spaces for PPE in all schools, provision of trained PPE teachers, and through lowering teacher-pupil ratios. Strategically, extending PPE to more years, improving teacher quality, and effecting supportive monitoring are key priorities, to be followed by an extension in organised early childhood daycare; figures show the potential for a significant improvement in participation rates in early childhood activities or nurseries. 

Making an Early Start

Supply-side growth enables young economies to leap ahead putting behind them past challenges. Not so for young children: starting behind in early years is staying behind (source: OECD, 2020). Supply-side investment in early years' education is the most effective way of enabling educational success and well-being. Supply-side investment in the early years improves educational attainment later on and is the best use of limited government resources.

Longitudinal studies show a strong positive link between early education and later outcomes. Without the critical early skills in literacy and regulation, children face unnecessary challenges at school and in adult life. We have the chance to change this. Effective early learning affects other outcomes: high educational attainment is linked to more positive employment and higher earnings and better health; the effect sizes on adult incomes are significant (source: OECD, 2018).

Investment in early years education helps happy, healthy children be active and curious. From an early age, children learn to explore their worlds, develop language, social and physical skills. They learn through others – learning to listen, to share and to problem-solve. They learn to make friends and be social beings.

Investment in early years education helps children develop key academic skills (in literacy and numeracy) and leads to higher skill levels in later life. From an early age, children build self-regulation and visual-motor skills, good predictors of educational attainment in later life. With good emergent literacy, children understand more words and have better quality interactions, tending towards others with good language skills. With good emergent literacy, children do better in reading. Early self-regulation helps with attentiveness and persistence with key tasks in literacy and numeracy and provokes positive teacher perceptions of children's abilities. More widely, good early experiences help them learn to yearn, in wanting wider learning opportunities with the people and places around them.

Investment in early years education supports progress long term: through higher attainment post-school, through stronger employment and socio-economics outcomes, stronger work-based competencies, and better health. Studies show that children with better language skills (at five years) have a stronger propensity for positive mental health in adulthood: with less likelihood of depression, anxiety and psychological stress. In contrast, poor early self-regulation is linked to later-life mental health disorders, particularly for men. 

Making a difference now

Investment in children is a collaborative duty involving parents and schools and public and private stakeholders. By working together, we can support long-term government goals and collaborate on impactful short-term solutions. Government focus on access to high quality early years education must be complemented by other actions. Easier said than done; it means giving children access to books and stories and encouraging adults to read to children regularly (5-7 days a week). 

Easier said than done, it means helping parents and caregivers to be involved in their children's education, by helping those who are least equipped to help others. Easier said than done, it means a patchwork of sporting, cultural and community-based activities, to provoke a yearning for learning. Public-private partnerships have a role to play in this by using their human and physical resources for the betterment of all. 

My own school, Haileybury Bhaluka, has the scope to offer its local communities access to books and reading resources and to give parents support in helping their children to read. In doing so, we want to see children reading every day, to see children taking books home, to hear them talking to their parents about their stories, and to see them involved in community activities. We want to see all children learning, developing and succeeding.

In building better futures, we move forward together.

Simon O'Grady is the Founding Headmaster of Haileybury Bhaluka, the first premier boarding school in Bangladesh. Having built outstanding schools on three continents, he draws on his leadership experience in a series of defining articles to reimagine education. An alumnus of The London School of Economics, he understands the importance of investing in human capital.

Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions and views of The Business Standard.