Leave no child behind

My opinion was based on the fact that it is preferable to give these small families the tools and the support to earn money and improve their standard of living, rather than simply giving them welfare and leaving them to wallow eternally just below the poverty line.

However I have recently come across a number of articles which indicate that the benefits of offering free or heavily-subsidised childcare to families from difficult backgrounds actually has benefits that go beyond simply allowing the mothers to work and fend for themselves.

In Finland, there is an excellent network of pre-kindergarten schools which accept children between the ages of nine months and six years. Each class takes up to 20 children and is led by four university-educated teachers - classes last all day and the children play, eat meals and even sleep together.

This daycare system is voluntary and payment is pay-as-you-can, which means that the family is means-tested and the government covers the cost of those who cannot afford to pay for the service. As you can imagine this is rather costly for the Finnish government, but as the years have gone by and Finland has undergone cost-cutting exercises, this programme remained untouched, due to the fact that it is seen as an investment in society, ensuring that all children get equal opportunities.

It has in fact been found that this daycare system helps close the achievement gap between children coming from rich and poor families. Researchers at the University of Kansas have shown that by the time they are four, children raised in families on welfare in the United States have heard 32 million fewer words than children raised by professional parents. Children from both backgrounds are at par until the age of 18 months, but from that point onwards the children of professionals take off on a steep learning curve, while children from families on welfare flat line. As the years go by the language gulf expands, and it becomes practically insurmountable by the time the children make it to kindergarten.  This was not the only study which underlined the importance of improving the quality of early learning for children under the age of five - there has been a plethora of academic papers published that underscore the need to significantly improve access to formative education during the first years of life, particularly for at-risk children. These children do not only suffer because of their reduced exposure to varied vocabulary, but also because they are given less grounding in non-cognitive skills such as self-control, the ability to focus and sustain attention, the importance of perseverance and hard work and also the benefits of organisation and time management.

In Finland, there is no such gap between rich and poor children, because Finnish children spend their day talking and playing with university-educated professionals. In other words, the daycare system gives these children access to grown-ups who have advanced language and intellectual abilities and it gives them the same exposure to vocabulary and values that children from higher-income and higher-education families do. When the children go to school they start off on a level playing-field, ensuring that they are empowered to make the same achievements and have the same educational opportunities.

There is also another very important side-effect to the daycare system in Finland - the classes take children from violent and volatile homes and put them in a safe and predictable environment. We all know that there are families where parents simply cannot be trusted to put food on the table or even just to watch the kids, leading to the children having problems with self-esteem and relationships, essentially condemning these children to repeat the mistakes of their parents and to continue the downwards spiral.

Ultimately, there is no doubt that quality early learning can be the most cost-effective public investment available to avoid teen pregnancies, juvenile crime, school dropouts and passing on all the same problems to the next generation.

So it is clear that more needs to be done in Malta to help children who are at a disadvantage. The provision of quality daycare facilities, manned by top notch childcare professionals, is something that simply cannot be left on the back-burner any longer. Every year we ask ourselves why we have such a high rate of children dropping out of school and such a low rate of students progressing to secondary and tertiary education - and we ignore the fact that the answer is staring us straight in the face.

I get angry when I think of the money we pay University students to continue their studies - it is all well and good to give out stipends to these students, if you are also helping the have-nots, however that is not the case in Malta, is it? These are students who have made it - the great majority of them come from middle class families and had all the support they needed in order to make their way in life. What are we spending to help those children who are born to drug addicts, violent fathers, or people simply too poor and ignorant to care?

Kids under five do not have votes, while students over 18 do. That's all it boils down to.