Better educational outcomes: Start early

| October 1, 2014

In recent years there has been a welcome national debate about how we can improve educational outcomes for Australian children. At the recent Global Access Partners Summit on Education Professor Frank Oberklaid said that learning is as a continuum from birth, and policy and services should reflect this.

Last year around 300,000 Australian children started school. Of this number, almost one in five entered school vulnerable in one of more areas of development. In the Northern Territory it was one in three. In some communities, it was one in two – every second child. These are children who arrived at school without the developmental foundations essential for learning and school success.

What happens to these children? Some do fine, while many struggle. Some are referred to paediatricians or other professionals with various combinations of learning and behavioural problems; many will go on to have problems engaging with school, low levels of motivation and self esteem. For some, these early difficulties are the pathways to life long problems – poor literacy, welfare dependency, mental health problems.

There is a social gradient for poor school readiness; children from disadvantaged families and communities have a significantly increased rate of problems. This can be explained by the science of brain development. A robust body of research points to the importance of the early years in establishing the trajectory for life long outcomes.

We used to think that all we had to do in the early years was to keep children safe and healthy, and development would take its course. We now know clearly that this is not so. The relationships experienced by a young child are critical in creating the conditions for optimal brain development. Warm, nurturing and stimulating early relationships build the solid foundations for learning. Conversely, where relationships are stressful – in circumstances of severe poverty, family stress, dysfunctional parenting, parental mental health problems or substance abuse, exposure to violence – then this persistent stress interferes with brain circuit development and places the child at risk of poor school readiness and learning and behavioural problems. Moreover, persistent stress also resets the body’s physiological systems and increases the risk of problems in adult life – heart disease, obesity, mental health problems, some cancers.

We can see differences between advantaged and disadvantaged children from as early as two years of age. We are asking schools to compensate for the disadvantaged environments in the years before children start school – this is an almost impossible task. The child’s developmental trajectory becomes increasingly fixed over time and difficult to change. The research suggests that biologically and economically it is more effective to get it right the first time that to try to fix things later on.

James Heckman, a Nobel Prize winning economist, puts it succinctly when he says:

A large body of research suggests that skill begets skill, that learning begets learning. The earlier the seed is planted and watered, the faster and larger it grows. Once a child falls behind, he or she is likely to remain behind. Ability gaps between advantaged and other children open up early, before schooling begins. Conventional school-based policies start too late to completely remedy early deficits, though they can do some good. Children who start ahead keep accelerating past their peers, widening the gap. Early advantages accumulate, so do early disadvantages. The best way to improve the schools is to improve the early environments of the children sent to them.’

We have to have policy that recognises the fact that learning begins at birth. In the critical early years we still are having an uninformed debate about quality child care, whether early years professionals need to have qualifications, about access and cost. The research tells us that we need to make a significant investment of intellectual and material resources in making sure that young children grow up in an environment of relationships that enhance their development. Economists tell us that this is the best investment any country can make.

It is an investment in future social infrastructure, in future productivity and prosperity. This may be much more important to Australia than investing in physical infrastructure.

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