Abstract
A recent Nature article modelled within-country inequalities in primary, secondary, and tertiary education and forecast progress towards Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) targets related to education (SDG 4). However, their paper entirely overlooks inequalities in achieving Target 4.2, which aims to achieve universal access to quality early childhood development, care and preschool education by 2030. This is an important omission because of the substantial brain, cognitive and socioemotional developments that occur in early life and because of increasing evidence of early-life learning’s large impacts on subsequent education and lifetime wellbeing. We provide an overview of this evidence and use new analyses to illustrate medium- and long-term implications of early learning, first by presenting associations between pre-primary programme participation and adolescent mathematics and science test scores in 73 countries and secondly, by estimating the costs of inaction (not making pre-primary programmes universal) in terms of forgone lifetime earnings in 134 countries. We find considerable losses, comparable to or greater than current governmental expenditures on all education (as percentages of GDP), particularly in low- and lower-middle-income countries. In addition to improving primary, secondary and tertiary schooling, we conclude that to attain SDG 4 and reduce inequalities in a post-COVID era, it is essential to prioritize quality early childhood care and education, including adopting policies that support families to promote early learning and their children’s education.
Highlights
In an important recent Nature article, Friedman et al.[1] modelled within-country inequalities in primary, secondary, and tertiary education and forecast progress towards education-related targets of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)
Students who participated in 1 year of pre-primary programmes had on average 0.10 standard deviations (SD) higher mathematics test scores at age 15 compared to students who participated in
To illustrate one important component of the costs of not achieving SDG 4.2.2, we simulated the costs of inaction (COI), or the present discounted value of the losses in future income if pre-primary programme enrolments remain at their 2018 levels instead of becoming universal[21]
Summary
In an important recent Nature article, Friedman et al.[1] modelled within-country inequalities in primary, secondary, and tertiary education and forecast progress towards education-related targets of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Child-directed speech, emotional attunement grammes in the 28 European Union countries, reaching the target between caregivers and children that promotes affection and trust, and predictable adult responsiveness to children’s communication are foundations of children’s learning[14] The importance of these elements for young children’s development is articulated set in their Strategic Framework for Cooperation in Education and Training[24]. 3 completion rates[27], suggesting that free compulsory programmes can set children on paths to longer-term educational attainment Inequalities in both provision of and access to early learning opportunities accumulate and extend as children progress through pre-primary, primary and secondary schooling[28]. Recent evidence indicates that universally provided high-quality early care and education programmes reduce learning gaps between children from higher and lower socioeconomic status households[30]. We undertook new analyses of the value of pre-primary school, using a sample of 430,000 children from 73 middle- and highincome countries (Supplementary Table 1) surveyed in the 2018 Programme for International Student Assessments (PISA)[33]
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