Angara stresses need to improve early childhood education program

Sen. Edgardo Angara yesterday underscored the need to invest more in early childhood education to enable the country to gain competitiveness in the global arena.

“Behavioral science tells us there is no single most important period in a person’s life than childhood. That is where we learn our most vital lessons. There, bonds are formed and lasting ties are cemented. They say there is nothing more sacred than a child’s trust. And that is why we are here. To make sure that the trust so unconditionally given to us by the members of the next generation is well-placed. We are here to ensure continuity in efforts to provide holistic development for children within these years,” Angara, who heads the Senate committee on finance, said in a statement.

Angara added, “And why is this important? Because the fruits of our efforts are promising. Children who undergo pre-school are less aggressive, less prone to violence. For example, the Syracuse Family Development Research Program provided family development support for children from prenatal care through age five. Ten years later, these kids reported 70 percent reductions in problems with probation and criminal offenses from the average.”

It has been shown that children who attended pre-school score 27 percent higher on a standard math test compared to students that didn’t attend pre-school. Preschool boosts a child’s cognitive and language and social development.

An evaluation of the Infant Health Development Program (IHDP), which provided pre-primary education and healthcare support to poor, malnourished toddlers showed that children exposed to the program longer had higher IQ than those who had shorter exposure to IHDP.

Angara, known as the Senate’s Mr. Education, added that indeed early education was the most cost-effective way to reduce poverty and foster economic growth. He said that it had also been shown that investments in early child education were more cost-effective than government intervention programs on adults. This simply meant, he said, that “by investing now in our children we save more resources.”

According to Nobel Laureate James Heckman, for the same level of investment at each age, the return is higher in human capital when a dollar is spent on the young than when it is spent on the old. The explanation is remarkably simple — learning begets learning and skills acquired early on make later learning easier. –Daily Tribune