WB Report: Universal Early Childhood Development Critical in the Long Run

• Investing in ECDE yields the highest economic returns and can break the cycle of poverty. Early learning and formation of good habits and social skills are far more productive than later remedial education and training. China's goal to develop a harmonious society and to improve the competitiveness of its future workforce in order to move towards a high-income society would be more effectively served by investing in ECDE. Since China has universalized nine years of compulsory education and has rapidly increased enrollment in post-compulsory education, the provision of ECDE services for the 0-6 age group would close a gap in the country's human resource development strategy.

• China has underinvested in ECDE. Disparity in access to service is partly the result of inadequate public expenditure. In 2008, ECDE accounted for 9.3 percent of the total enrollment in the education system but public spending on ECDE was at 0.01 percent of GDP, or 1.3 percent of the total public expenditure on education. This is far below the OECD average of 0.5 percent of GDP, or 8 percent of total public spending. ECDE services are financed mostly on a cost-recovery basis, be that public or private nurseries and kindergartens. Public spending on the services for the 0-3 year-olds is insignificant.

• Tuition fees are barrier to access for the poor and insufficient provision disadvantages rural and minority children. Although China has made enormous progress in maternal and child health and has reached about 51 percent gross enrollment for the 3-6 age group in 2009, rural children are under served, particularly the extremely poor and ethnic minorities. Roughly 60 percent of China's young children lived, but only 43 percent enrollment was in rural areas. The 0-3 age-group is particularly under served. Increasing public investment is needed to realize the targets of expanding the gross enrollment ratio for 3 years of pre-primary education to 60 percent in 2015 and 70 percent in 2020, as set out in the National Plan for Medium and Long-Term Education Reform and Development (2010-2020).

• Prenatal care, nutrition, medical care, early stimulation and parenting education can overcome inequality in life. The report's multivariate analysis of a household survey in Hunan finds that enrollment in kindergartens, access to health check-up, nutrition, caregivers' access to information, and good parenting practices at home are positively associated with weight, height, social and cognitive development of 3-year-olds. Interventions in these areas can overcome disparities in child development due to household income, educational attainment of the mother and caregivers, ethnicity, rural location, and being left-behind by migrant parents.

• Targeting extremely poor women and children for assistance in the medium-term and eventual universalization of ECDE for the 0-6 age group can build a harmonious society and a competitive future workforce. While the report considers it very important to universalize ECDE, its policy recommendations focus on the medium term. The report advocates a two-pronged, pro-poor approach for the 12th Five Year Plan (2011-2015). First, the Anti-Poverty Program should include ECDE for the extremely poor, and poverty monitoring should include child development outcomes. Second, expansion of ECDE is financially feasible if: central fiscal transfer supplements county spending in Western and Central Regions in a similar way as it supports compulsory education; and cost-effective community-based and home-based interventions in pre-natal care, parenting education, medical check-ups for children, and early stimulation programs. Conditional cash transfer or vouchers could be used to stimulate demand.

"The World Bank places great significance on early childhood development and education because this is the foundation of life. We consider it to be indispensible to alleviate poverty, to improve human resource development, and to sustain China's future competitiveness," said Klaus Rohland, World Bank Country Director for China.

"We hope the best practices highlighted in the report in early childhood development can be ensured in more effective development of China's early childhood development programs," said James W. Adams, World Bank Vice President for East Asia and the Pacific.