No finer investment than early childhood education

“There is no finer investment for any community,” Sir Winston Churchill said in a wartime radio broadcast, “than putting milk into babies.”

That’s as true now as it was in 1943. But it’s just as fine an investment to put education into those babies, when they are just a little older, and as early as we can.

Indeed, investments in greater access to early childhood education (ECE) have remarkably powerful and far-reaching benefits for society, a new study by the Conference Board of Canada (Ready for Life: A Socio-Economic Analysis of Early Childhood Education) shows. Providing quality pre-school education, the study finds, raises family incomes and living standards, boosts economic growth and reduces inequality — not only in the future, but in the present as well.

In the short run, access to ECE allows more women with small children to participate in the labour force, a key factor in raising family incomes and in supporting higher economic growth.

In the longer term, ECE improves educational and earnings outcomes for the children — particularly disadvantaged children — and leads to a higher-skilled and more productive workforce that is less vulnerable to the disruptions posed by technology.

Taking all these factors into account, the Conference Board estimates a long-term return of $2 to $6 for every dollar spent to bring ECE enrolment of our children (58 per cent for Canada and 46 per cent for this region) up to the 70 per cent average for the OECD, an organization of developed countries.

Craig Alexander, the Conference Board’s senior vice-president and chief economist, says the benefits of extending ECE are particularly important for Atlantic Canada.

Our rapidly aging population is shrinking the labour force and fewer workers means slower economic growth. This demographic problem is the region’s “No. 1 challenge,” Mr. Alexander told The Chronicle Herald editorial board in an interview, and we need to find ways to maximize any potential workers we have.

Better access to ECE would enable more women with small children to work, he says. Besides raising family incomes, this “would be important and meaningful for Atlantic Canada because of the demographic challenge.” Extended ECE could also help the region retain immigrants, he believes. It helps children and parents settle into the community and also enables mothers to participate in language training programs.

ECE investments, he argues, can play an important role in addressing many of our challenges — literacy, numeracy, immigration, productivity, competitiveness and responding to the technological change. Most of all, they are, as he aptly puts it, the “great enabler” of our children’s potential. These are all great reasons for the province to continue to extend both access to ECE and the duration of pre-school programs. For, on both counts, we are still lagging what is available, on average, in other OECD countries.