Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, if she will make an assessment of the potential implications for her policy on early years interventions of the study by Professor James Heckman on the economics of human potential.

Providing children with good-quality education and care in their earliest years can help them succeed at school and later in life. This contributes to creating a society where opportunities are equal regardless of background. We believe we can improve early education by building a stronger and better-qualified early years workforce. We also aim to provide more good-quality affordable childcare.

Professor James Heckman has published a number of (mostly US based) studies, which form part of a much wider evidence base on the substantial benefits of investing in early education. Professor Heckman reports that early education has significant positive impacts on a child’s development and attainment and finds that these impacts can be larger for disadvantaged children. Taken as a whole, the evidence underpins the Department’s policy to provide an entitlement to 570 hours of free early education or childcare a year for all 3 and 4-year-olds and disadvantaged 2-year-olds.

The Department for Education has no current plans to make an assessment of the potential implications for policy on early years interventions of Professor Heckman’s most recent work.