- Pre-school education boosts cognitive, character and social skills. The educational impact of early childhood education is already evident in teenagers: 15-year olds who attended preschool for one year or more score higher in the OECD’s Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) than those who did not.
- Early childhood education also has wider social benefits: it increases the likelihood of healthier lifestyles, lowers crime rates and reduces overall social costs of poverty and inequality. It enhances future incomes: full-time childcare and pre-school programmes from birth to age 5 have been shown to boost future earnings for children from lower-income families by as much as 26%.
- Early childhood education can ease inequality by enabling mothers to get back to work and support the household’s budget with a second income. In most countries, women’s participation in the labour market is clearly linked to the age of their children. Across Europe, 20% of women declare family responsibilities as the main reason for not working; lack of available care provision for young children is a primary reason.
Early childhood education can lay the foundations for later success in life in terms of education, well-being, employability, and social integration. This is even more valid for children from disadvantaged backgrounds.
Investing in pre-school education is one of those rare policies that is both socially fair — as it increases equality of opportunity and social mobility — and economically efficient, as it fosters skills and productivity. But all these benefits are conditional on the quality of the education provided.
