Kevin Rudd credits the research of Nobel laureate James Heckman for steering him to his 2020 vision for all children under five to have access to a one-stop health, childcare and education centre.

The Prime Minister yesterday played down suggestions he pilfered the proposal from the Blair government’s 1999 Sure Start program, but conceded the idea was not all his.

“I don’t think any of these ideas are necessarily completely original,” Mr Rudd said yesterday. “I mean, the world of ideas is kicking around out there. Who owns parentage of all of this?”

The Prime Minister said his personal interest in the area was piqued 18 months ago.

“I read parts of a book by a guy called Heckman about the impact of early childhood development in various childcare centres around the world,” he said.

“If you invest early in a young child’s development, then the yield long-term in terms of the productivity of that person’s life is huge.”

The Government’s early childhood policy for last year’s election made much of the work of Professor Heckman, a Nobel laureate in economic sciences who says a child’s learning capability, which starts before school begins and is most active in the first few years, can set the course for life.

The policy, Labor’s Plan for Early Childhood, says: “Heckman argues that even by school age, it may be too late to intervene to influence a child’s learning and motivation if bad learning practice habits are already entrenched.”

Beyond health, education and socialisation benefits, the Government’s policy also notes research pointing to the potential economic payoff of investing in child development programs.

“The Brookings Institution in the United States projects that a high-quality universal preschool policy would boost the size of the US economy by $US270 billion by 2050,” it says.

It also refers to cost-benefit analyses of US early-intervention programs, concluding that for every dollar spent on young children, there was a big return on investment from savings in areas such as welfare payments and justice.

“The (High/Scope) Perry Preschool Project returned $7.16 in public benefits and $8.74 in total benefits for every dollar invested,” it found. The most recent analysis of this project put the benefit at $17 per dollar invested.

Early-childhood experts are concerned the Government is placing too much stock on brain development data from overseas studies that focus on very disadvantaged children.

They say that intervention and formal programs might be necessary for preschool children in troubled families, but those in well-functioning families receive lots of rich experiences at home that give them resilience.

Concerns are also raised that developmental problems don’t all neatly occur in the preschool years, with many occurring in middle-school years when children are aged between 9 and 12.

Source: The Australian, Australia
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,23563368-5013871,00.html