Reaching the marginalized: EFA global monitoring report, 2010; 2010

PROGRESS TOWARDS THE EFA GOALSEarly childhood care and educationformative years, children develop the cognitive andwider skills that will prepare them for school. Pupilsfrom disadvantaged backgrounds often enter schoolcarrying a legacy of disadvantage in many areas,including lower levels of communication, languageand literacy skills. The effects of growing up in adisadvantaged home are seldom reversed later inlife – in fact, the gaps widen as children progressthrough their school years (UNESCO, 2005).Narrowing the opportunity divideAn early start in education is particularly importantfor children from disadvantaged families. Poverty,low levels of parental education or speaking aminority language at home are among the mostpowerful transmitters of disadvantage acrossgenerations. Good-quality early childhood provisioncan cut the transmission lines.By the time children enter school, disparities inlanguage skills linked to income and other factorsare often so marked that children can never catchup. Evidence from the United States demonstratesthat test scores at the age of 18 are predictable byage 5 (Heckman, 2008). Research in Ecuadorindicates that differences in vocabulary test scoresbetween children from different wealth groups arelimited at age 3 but that by age 5 the gap is far toowide to be closed in later school years (Paxson andSchady, 2005b) (Figure 2.4). In the United Kingdom,longitudinal studies show that test scores at22 months are a strong predictor for educationalqualifications at 22 years (Feinstein, 2003).Moreover, studies have shown that children fromlow socio-economic backgrounds but with highcognitive ability scores at 22 months are overtakenby children with lower scores from more affluentfamilies between the ages of 5 and 10 years.Income differences are not the only source ofadvantage and disadvantage. Parental education,ethnicity and home language all exercise a stronginfluence on early childhood test scores andsubsequent educational achievement (Brooks-Gunnand Markman, 2005; EACEA, 2009; Leseman andvan Tuijil, 2005). The issue of language is especiallysalient. There is strong evidence from theOrganisation for Economic Co-operation andDevelopment (OECD) that having a home languagethat is different from the language used in schoolsignificantly decreases achievement for immigrantchildren in both primary and secondary school(Christensen and Stanat, 2007; Schnepf, 2004).Remedial action often meets with limited success.In Norway, 20% of migrant students placed inBox 2.3: Cash transfer in Nicaragua — overcoming cognitive deficitsIn many developing countries, serious delays in children’s cognitivedevelopment damage their prospects in school and their productivityas adults. Understanding the causes of cognitive deficits and developingways to reduce them are critical policy priorities.The Atención a Crisis programme in Nicaragua demonstrates the potentialbenefits of early intervention. Significant cash payments, representing onaverage about 15% of household income, were made every two months towomen in poor rural households. To be eligible, parents had to take childrenof pre-school age for regular visits to health centres, where they wereweighed and received vaccinations and food supplements.This pilot programme, carried out during 2005 and 2006, includeda careful evaluation. Results indicated that the programme improvedseveral dimensions of child development:After only nine months in the programme, children aged 3 to 4 yearshad made up 1.5 months’ delayed personal-social and languagedevelopment on one set of test scores, rising to 2.4 months forchildren aged 5 to 6 years.Participating households were found to have higher values for signsof parental stimulation, including the availability of books, paperand pencils, and the likelihood of parents reading to children.Overall food expenditures increased among treated households,especially on nutrient-rich foods.Wide-ranging preventive health benefits were identified. Participatingchildren were more likely to have had a growth check-up, receivedvitamin and iron supplements, and to have been treated with de-wormingdrugs. The reported health status of mothers had also improved.Source: Macours et al. (2008).special language training groups on enteringschool never leave them and in Switzerland mostmigrant children not deemed equipped to entermainstream classes are still in such groups aftertwo years (Field et al., 2007). Moreover, evidencefrom several countries shows that catching upthrough special classes often requires studentsto miss the normal curriculum (Karsten, 2006).Early childhood education can play an important rolein offsetting social, economic and language-baseddisadvantage. Evidence from around the worldindicates that high-quality early care is goodfor all children, but particularly for those fromdisadvantaged backgrounds. The followingare among the findings to emerge from a rangeof rigorous evaluations:The Head Start Impact Study in the United Statesrandomly evaluated about 5,000 3- and 4-yearolds.It found small to moderate statisticallyHigh-quality earlycare is particularlyimportant forchildren fromdisadvantagedbackgrounds49