By Gabriel Bright Dumaka, member of Senate of University College London (UCL) Institute of
Education and and early years Education Specialist as well as a member of London Center for
Leadership and learning.
Introduction
The author of this paper comes from the Early Years
education background and draws his analogy from numerous established findings
that prove that “returns on investments in early years
education of children is far greater than many other sectors. This paper
therefore makes a case that Nigeria will maximize their potential for greatness
through a sustained strategic long term planning and implementation of an Early
Years Education policy. There is evidence to show that such a project would
translate to gains in so many areas. It argues that the society as a
whole would be far stronger as a cohesive and leading force if this is made a
priority project undertaken by the stakeholders responsible for the
communities.
The paper explores the challenges facing Nigeria
and proposes an approach towards bringing a lasting solution. While it does not
prescribe a one-step key to the issues we face as a nation; it nevertheless
highlights the essence and important components of a successful societal
development of the entire country in terms of speedy and sustainable
development which appears to be a necessary consequence of a long term
strategic plan. To that extent, the paper aims to propose among others, a
formulation and or review of our Early Years curriculum to include a strategic
plan to inculcate in our children, sound ethical and moral values that make for
sustained development. In addition, it makes the case for the re-evaluation of
community values by policy makers, stakeholders and adults in general to
consciously adopt a long term strategic plan to maintain those values that make
us dynamic and enterprising as a community but change the ones that adversely
affect us.The West do it– British Value
2) Why the Issues discussed here are Relevant
There are many reasons why the audience should deem
the issues addressed in this paper as a concern both individually, collectively
as a people. The questions around standard of educational qualification from
our universities and other tertiary institutions remain issues that thwart our
societal progress by giving rise to increased unemployment, crime, corruption,
the lack of adequate infrastructures for industries, human Capital drain. Other
challenges include the desperation for instant wealth and its impact on our
image both nationally and internationally, the effect of operating as a closed
community as opposed to an open-style model and the Political consequences of
closed-community-style model. As such, it is necessary to take positive actions
to change the downward trend in the success our country.
The writer will challenge the audience to look
inwardly at every facets of the culture and tradition of our society and apply
the outcome to a long term strategic plan for sustainable development.
3) Are there any Consequences of Inaction?
It is arguable that Nigerians are uniquely gifted
but like many such gifted and people, there are challenges that threaten to
quench our progressive abilities and inhibit our economic potentials. As noted
earlier, Anambra State as a community is the chosen case study for this paper.
They aptly represent Nigeria which ideally should be the focus of this paper in
terms of the objectives. In addition, it is ideal for a project of this nature
to be started with a pilot and as such, it is important that the pilot should
be representative of the country: both from the perspective of the challenges,
prospects and dynamism. While it is accepted that Anambra State cannot be said
to be a mirror image of Nigeria; they nevertheless best represent some of the
known traits of the country and there is arguably no single tribe in Nigeria
which can be said to capture the essence of the diverse country.
A summary of the challenges that face the Anambra
State reflect the same challenges that Nigeria faces, albeit in different
facets or magnitudes. We will briefly set out a few of these challenges from
the perspective of Nigeria and Anambra State in particular.
There is a glaring lack of infrastructures in
Nigeria and the Eastern region. The state of the road network is pathetically
dangerous. It appears that successive governments (both local and federal) have
failed to effectively address this problem. The absence of a crucial
communication facility affects the economy and human resource development. The
persistence of the problems indicates that the country has been unable to
produce effective and selfless leaders for more than 40 years.
The key underlying contributing factor for the poor
road network in the country may be the lack of effective leaders and this in
effect translates to the consequence of the serious educational limitations
that begin from the early years. The country boasts of several universities.
Nonetheless, it does not appear that the products of the universities are
contributing to the society at the rate expected. The real issue here is not in
the number of the universities available; rather there is an issue with the
quality of the education in terms of practicality (employability,
entrepreneurial capacity and understanding). Further concerns in the area of
limited education are the high rate of college dropouts and youth
unemployment. When youths drop out of tertiary education or fail to proceed
to post secondary education, then it becomes even more important that they had
the privilege of Early Years education where they would have been trained in
the basic life skills and disciplines that would help them succeed in life and
be productive.
Another challenge that exacerbates the above issues
of limited education is Human Capital drain. Hence it is particularly
disturbing when a country looses its human capital especially the trained and
educated that make up the skilled labour market. These potentially would have
had their educational trainings in the country prior to leaving to go to
foreign countries due to the absence of opportunities and other
reasons.
The wrong concept of success in the society is a
challenge that has to be addressed from its root through early education of the
core values of a morally stable society. Igbos and Nigerians a s whole have
permitted the wrong motivation to be the driving force of its individual and
very rarely collective quest for success. The average Nigerian is desperate to
get rich quickly. As such, there is an inordinate desire to acquire wealth as
the ultimate prize. Success has now been connoted with wealth and this has had
adverse impact on our image. The quest for wealth has led several young men to
various nefarious ventures such as fraud, drugs and the like. Elected political
leaders have resorted to individual aggrandizement rather than selflessly
serving the electorates. Ultimately, this has become a stigma that is
associated with the country. It is nevertheless one that may be corrected by
inculcating the correct human values in the child through Early Years
education. Children who undergo early years education as will be shown
subsequently tend to have the values that ensure that they are drawn towards
virtue rather than vice in latter life.
These challenges stated above are not all that face
the society. However, they represent a significant portion and the others may
in many ways be strands of the above summarized challenges. Furthermore,
they highlight the need for a collective and sustained policy of an effective
implementation of Early Years education in the country.
4) The Case for a Policy of Early Years Education
The challenges facing the Nigeria are diverse but
not insurmountable. However, to address and tackle these challenges one has to
look at the future and set the structures to comprehensively counter these
issues from the root. It is arguable and strongly supported by empirically
research below that a policy of organised early years education program is a
critical factor in resolving the myriad of challenges. There are three ways in
which it provides a platform for the repositioning Anambra State for
sustained generational success.
i.
The Capacity of Early Years Education to lay a foundation for success in life
The regional Governments of the Canadian state of
Victoria in a study stated the basic and generally accepted believe that
the right start in life sets a child on to the path to success as it provides
them with the necessary skills sets to thrive at school, stay healthy, socially
connected and contribute to the society.[1] The paper further highlighted that the
benefits of educating our children in the early years of life have been made
more glaring as a result of recent advancement in economics and sciences that
different researches have shown on the importance of the first years of life.[2] At the same time, when a child looses
this opportunity in this period (between birth and 5 years old), as is common
in our community and in fact most of Africa, it is very difficult for that
child to recover. The environment that a child spends his or her early years,
strongly shapes the probability of success in their future health, wellbeing
and general development.
The pace of physical development especially brain
development is rapid in the early years of life. It has been asserted that a
key influence in how a young child's brain structurally and functionally
develops is traceable to his/her experiences. Therefore, providing a stable and
stimulating environment with diverse opportunities to interact with other
children leads them to develop relationships in their lives which
ultimatelyposition them to excel in life.
These basic foundations that a child develops such
as language growth and ability to regulate emotions act as the platform for the
development of the more advanced skills essential to success in education and
life.[3]
ii.
It is critical to life’s chances and can prevent some societal Challenges
The second way Early Years education can contribute
in the resolution of the society’s challenges in that it is critical to a
child’s future success. As noted above, a stimulating Early Years educational
environment will facilitate a child’s success in life in general. In particular
it was highlighted that such a child will be better positioned to succeed
socially and academically and more importantly economically.
Given that a massive programme of early years
education is made available in a given society, the benefits will be to the
individual children families and that society. Therefore, it is logically to
argue that if the Anambra State can pull resources together and set up a
sustainable programme of free early years education; then it is
highly probable that the foundation will be set for a progressive, prosperous
and successful generation of future Anambra State merchants, engineers,
doctors, footballer and other skills in the society. What is certain is that
such a successful blueprint will project us as the epitome of success in
comparison to other African nations.
The efforts to provide better platform for future
generation of Anambra State to fulfill their potential and dominate in diverse
socio-economic landscape of the Nigerian and in fact African can only start
from Early Years education in such a scale that is pervasive and available to
every household. Such Early Years education for our children will provide the
platform to fulfill their potential as noted earlier.
iii. The Economic Viability of Early Years
Education Programme.
There is enormous empirical evidence to show that
investing in early years education programme does not only help the individual
child but it “is a vital driver of economic growth, productivity and social
progress”.[4] There is a consensus among scholars that
the investment in Early Years education will be both cost effective and provide
huge returns on investment. Let’s review a few of the influential research on
the economic benefits of Early Years education.
A starting position will be to indicate that there
is general expert consensus that it is somewhere between economically
worthwhile and imperative to invest more heavily in the very earliest months
and years of life. Hence we will summarize some approaches in order to evaluate
the outcomes of early years’investments.
a) The first approach that is reviewed
for our purposes provides recommendations that are the most cautious of all the
studies examined. Its research shows that returns on investment on
well-designed early years’interventions significantly exceed their costs. It
estimates that such returns are between 75% to over 1,000% higher than costs.
It argues that “where a whole country has adopted a policy of investment in
early years’prevention, returns are not merely financial but in strikingly
better health for the whole population. The benefits span lower infant
mortality at birth through to reduced heart, liver and lung disease in
middle-age.”[5] Therefore this demonstrates that any
efforts towards early years education project will also reap other rewards
including on the health of the society. This resonates with the philanthropic
aspirations of this group in terms of the medical missions that is being
carried out.
b) Another
study undertaken by the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis in collaboration
with Rolnick& Grunewald was undertaken from an economic/financial
perspective argue that “the significantly higher returns found from early years’programmes
compared to most public investment is evidence that society is not spending
enough on the early years –and that to do so is sound financial policy.”They
conclude that the Internal rates of return for those early years’programmes
evaluated exceed both: Stockmarket returns, and returns from typical public
policy investments.
[6]
[6]
c) James Heckman, who won the
Nobel prize for economics provides a study taken from an economic efficiency
and skill formation perspective, rather than avoiding social dysfunction. As
such, his argument is that the financial returns on early years investment is
at its highest for children aged 0 to 3 years and that it diminishes with age.
d) A study by Harvard University Center
on the Developing Child (2007, 2010) bases its case on the science of
neurobiology: the basis being that because the infant (and human) brain is
built from its basic structures upwards, each new stage depends on the quality
of the preceding stage. This means creating the right conditions for early
childhood development is likely to be more effective and less costly than
addressing problems at a later age.
e) One of the most specific empirical
studies on this issue involved the observation of the Chicago Child-Parent
Center Program by scholars led by Reynolds. They found benefits of more than
$80,000 per child, with $10.80 of benefits per $1 invested.[7] They also found that children with four
or more family risk factors yielded almost double the benefits of those with
fewer ($12.8 vs. $7.2 per $1 invested).[8] Children from the highest poverty
neighborhoods had returns more than four times higher than those from less
disadvantaged areas.[9]
f) The findings of the team
led by Reynolds of the Chicago Public School system can be said to quite
significant in that it was a focused 4 decades study of an established public
educational structure and practice rather than an isolated pilot scheme.[10]The Washington State Institute for Public
Policy takes a rigorously conservative stance to programme evaluation, based on
an absolute ‘no false positives’approach. It arguably under-states by some
margin the value of preventing child abuse and heavily discounts, or disqualifies,
the research findings of many early years’practitioners. Even with these
restrictions, it still finds positive benefit to cost ratios for a range of
early years’programmes, ranging from $1.75 per $1 invested from Parents as
Teachers through $3.23 per $1 invested for Nurse Family Partnership and $7 for
Parent Child Interaction Therapy to $10.32 per $1 invested for Level 4 Group
Triple P.Their methodology and mandated legislative focus lead them to
recommend many more teen than early years’programmes. Such interventions should
not be seen in terms of either/or; both provide higher returns to society than
the bulk of public and private investments.
CONCLUSIONS
It is arguable that if this theory that drives
western economies to develop a clear plan for early years education and to fund
it (eg in England the government funds 50% of the education of 3-5years olds
and 100% of those in primary and secondary schools) are true in relation to the
benefit of early years education to the success of the child. It is therefore
arguable that the Anambra State and indeed Nigeria can develop a head start
over other tribes and nations in Africa if we were to plan and implement a
viable programme of Early Years education such that every family rich or plan
will benefit by sending their babies/toddlers to the funded nurseries. In fact,
the benefits far outweigh society and social ones to even include economic
returns on the investment. Perhaps, this presentation would challenge Anambra
indigenes in the diaspora in collaboration with the state government to
initiate a pilot scheme of free Early Years education in the state. There is no
doubt that in line with the earlier scholarly research, that the state will
reap enormous socio-economic dividends.
Footnote : Gabriel
Bright Dumaka , is from Nri, Anaocha local government area of Anambra state.
He is a
London based early years Education Specialist and a member of London Center for
Leadership and learning. He has served in various high profile positions
including member of Senate of University College London (UCL) Institute of
Education.
He is
also as Associate Minister in Prayer City, Kingsway International Christian
Center (KICC), London. He is as well a Philanthropist and a Humanitarian with
special expertise in Agriculture, Hospitality and Tourism Industry.
He was
one of the Pioneer managers of Nike Resort Hotel, Enugu. He came to Nigeria
with Anambra state Association Worldwide (ASA-Worldwide) of which he is a
member on medical mission to Anambra state where he delivered this paper
at the capacity building workshop, ASA-Worldwide Summit tagged Anambra
Development Initiative towards ASA-world think home philosophy, held at GeoGold
hotel Awka.
Before
the summit, ASA-World had visited 5 communities including Oko, Abagana,
Ihembosi, Obosi and Ozubulu as well as Oba and treated 5,000 patients suffering
from different ailments.
ASA-Worldwide
and ASA-USA President, Dr Nwachukwu Anakwenze who led the delegation to Nigeria
said the medical mission cost them 800,000 Dollars in diagnostic equipments and
drugs for the service of humanity and is supported by ASA-World membership
countries in 27 countries of the world including but not ,limited to China,
Dubai, Canada and Switzerland to mention but a few.