By Alissa Goodman and Barbara Sianesi
The aim of this report was to shed light on the question
of how effective early pre-school and schooling is for improving
the well-being of children, and whether any impacts are
likely to be long-lasting. The study is based on the National
Child Development Study (NCDS), a single cohort of people
born in 1958, observed up to the age of 42.
The authors consider the returns of two different early
education 'treatments'. First they consider the impact of
a child obtaining any early education prior to the age of
five, whether this takes place in a school setting (through
early entry to primary school), or in a pre-school setting
such as state-maintained or private nursery, or playgroup.
This answers the question of whether any formal human capital
intervention before the age of five is beneficial for child
outcomes. Second they restrict their treatment of interest
to attendance at pre-school only, answering the question
of whether attendance at nursery or other establishments
before entering primary school has short or long-term effects.
A range of outcomes are considered relating to cognitive
development, socialisation, and educational attainment and
labour market outcomes up to the age of 42.
The findings suggest that investments in human capital before
the age of five appear to have had long-lasting and positive
effects on the children from the 1958 cohort. The authors
found that early education leads to improvements in cognitive
tests, including both maths and reading at age seven. These
effects diminish in size but remain significant throughout
the schooling years, up to age 16. The effects on socialisation
appear to be more mixed. The authors find some evidence
of improvement in teacher reports, but a deterioration in
parental reports of social skills at age seven, especially
for first born children. However such effects on social
skills (both negative and positive) do not tend to last
and are no longer detectable by age 11. They also find evidence
that there are small gains from early education in adulthood,
both on educational attainment and labour market performance,
through a higher probability of obtaining qualifications,
and in turn marginally higher employment probabilities and
wages at age 33.
The report shows that the gains to early cognition (age
seven) are of a comparable size to those associated with
growing up in a family where the father is of high social
class, and almost completely counteract the negative effects
on test scores of growing up in a difficult family environment.
Whilst these latter family background effects either stay
the same or grow bigger throughout childhood and adulthood,
the effects of early education diminish, and so are small
relative to the impact of these family background factors
by the time the individual enters adulthood.
The research shows there is a positive impact of attending
nursery before a young person attends primary school on
early test scores. Once they control for background characteristics,
the authors find that these effects do not tend to be long-lasting,
with very weak evidence of continued effects through to
age 16. They also fail to find effects, either positive
or negative, on social skills. However, they do find evidence
of effects on wages at age 33 which are of a similar magnitude
to the wage effects found associated with pre-compulsory
schooling more generally.
The authors say they cannot determine how representative
of current provision the pre-school experience of the NCDS
children was. However, if anything, the presumption is that
any intervening changes in the practice, curriculum and
organisation of pre-school institutions would have worked
towards increasing the quality of the educational experience
provided. Thus the long-term benefits uncovered for the
1958 cohort are plausibly going to be even larger for current
pre-school children.
A full copy of the report can be downloaded from www.dfes.gov.uk/research
(From 'Parental background and child
outcomes: How much does money matter and what else matters?',
by Laura Blow, Alissa Goodman, Ian Walker, and Frank Windmeijer,
published by DfES, July 2005)
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