By Devyani Jaipuria
As educators and those in the realm of the education ecosystem, we often talk about various learning interventions that have a long lasting impact on children and help them way into their adult lives. But nothing quite comes close to the impact that is achieved when early childhood education is done right.
The sooner the better
There has been a range of research and evidence that suggests that a child’s early experiences can either positively or negatively shape learning, cognitive abilities and lifelong behaviors. More than one million new neural connections are formed every second in the first few years of a child’s age. The time period till eight years of age is one where the child goes through remarkable brain development, thus making it a crucial time for integration of foundational education interventions.
The methodologies and learning approaches at this age hold tremendous importance for a far-reaching impact. At the pre-school level, one must focus on an integrated approach to education, where teaching strategies involve play and autonomy. A self-directed, hands-on learning and a collaborative play based environment such as in Montessori education can be far more impactful than traditional education mythologies. When kids this age play with shapes for example, they learn about the features of geometric shapes better than when there is a one-way thematic communication by teachers.
The impact on learning through school and beyond
The continuum of this foundation in pre-school, goes well into primary grades as well. One cannot argue the importance of how pre-school education sets the right foundation to prep a student for the primary grades. The new National Education Policy (NEP) 2020, talks in detail on the universal provisioning of quality early childhood education to ensure students entering grade one are school ready and how this continuum must be the focus though to grade two. The NEP outlines that children will be equipped with a five-year foundational stage (pre-school until grade two), followed by three years in the preparatory stage, three years in middle stage and finally four years of secondary school education. When early education is the foundation of this continuum, it fosters effective growth and development of children’s minds.
Also, good quality early learning help reduce the chances of dropouts and improves learning outcomes and cognitive abilities at all levels. It not just improves cognitive abilities but also behavioral traits such as self-esteem, motivation and sociability.
Pre-school and primary school are also the ideal time to start integration of skill based education, where students can build imperative skills such as critical thinking, collaboration, creativity among others.
In fact, research shows that one of the most prominent effects of early education is not just on children’s learning but also on their resilience as teenagers and then as adults.
The impact of early childhood education clearly doesn’t just last through K-12 , it lasts a lifetime, having significant social and economic implications on communities and countries as a whole. A study in the US, showed that investment in early childhood education has at least a 4x to 9x return on investment per dollar. Students having a strong foundation in early childhood are more likely to be successful adults and contribute to the society and the economy. The large scale impact of quality early education on economic, social and civic realms is just extraordinary.
The Now and the Future
Early education is one of the most essential pieces of education reform. Informed investments to achieve a standardized, high quality early education is not just imperative but critical. The benefits far outweigh the investments one makes in programs on early education intervention. With focus on early education, we are creating profoundly better lives for not just our children, but the society at large. We are creating cohorts of independent, skilled school graduates who have aa strong social, emotional, civic and thematic foundation to take on the world.
The author is pro vice chairperson, Delhi Public School, Gurugram.