We did not distinguish between them but I do not wish to be grouped with either country. Combined with our historic deficit, we have extremely poor implementation of policy. I am sure it is not the first time that members have heard this argument but we have detailed a picture of relative inaction, peripheral implementation and drift in our report. The economic arguments for investment in early child care and education are very strong. As extensive economic research in all countries links human capital to education levels, if one is talking about human capital, one is fundamentally talking about investment in education. Competitiveness is linked with the capacity for lifelong learning, which has been repeatedly stated in other reports. Research reveals that lifelong learning rests on the basic foundation of early child care and education. It is extraordinarily difficult to remedy deficits that begun early in life. It is possible to remedy them but it costs a fortune and does not always work. This, combined with the increased participation of women in the labour force, will continue to be an important issue in a tight labour market.
On a visit to Ireland last year, James Heckmann, who won the Nobel Prize for his work on micro-economics, gave a very interesting account of his work in which he said that if one looks at the economic investment in early child care and education and tracks it through life in terms of Government expenditure on matters such as anti-social behaviour, school dropout rates and remedial education, the ratio of savings is 7:1. For every dollar spent on early child care and education, the saving on later expenditure is $7. This is not my assertion; it is the empirical finding of a Nobel laureate. The provision of quality early education programmes leads to better educational outcomes, less Government spending on associated child welfare problems and juvenile crime. Policy remedies later in life, which involve trying to pick up the pieces of people who drop out of school later in life, are very costly and often palliative. They cope with the problem rather than move towards lasting solutions.
The NESF began its work on early child care and education, to which Deputy Costello contributed, by discussing how it could raise the 80% of children who sit the leaving certificate to 100%. It soon discovered it is too late to start at the age of 16; one must start at the age of 12. It then discovered that starting at the age of 12 was too late because the issues that encourage people to drop out of school can be clearly identified at the age of nine, which was then discovered to be too late for intervention. We visited schools and spoke to teachers in disadvantaged areas who told us their major problem was absenteeism in infant classes. This is where the issue begins and why provision must be made at a much earlier stage and associated with a considerable amount of outreach for families, particularly families that require it. The State must stand in loco parentis for parents who cannot give their children the kind of start they now need to participate as full citizens. The absolute entry card or passport into full citizenship is education.
The arguments for early child care and education from the perspective of equality are extremely strong. The increase in income inequality, whichever way it is measured, is largely driven by a widening wage gap, which, in turn, is driven by educational levels. If one wishes to tackle inequality in a serious fashion, one must tackle education. The relationship between education and socioeconomic status is such that social gaps will increase as returns to education increase. In my generation, it was sufficient to pass one's leaving certificate, whereas two or three years later, one needed to possess a degree. Everyone now knows that a degree is only the start of the process. We are constantly driving up educational standards and the higher they become, the more inevitable it becomes that people will fall further behind unless money is invested in early child care and education. We are paddling around in a stagnant pool unless we take this issue seriously.
Ability gaps open up very early in family types before formal schooling begins and then persist. Some interesting work carried out for the United Kingdom's Cabinet Office seemed to shock its members. The work, in which large samples were examined, shows that, if one takes a middle class baby of average ability at 12 months of age and compares him or her with a working class, disadvantaged baby of above average ability, the gap has almost disappeared by the time the first baby is 22 months old. This could be due to the disadvantaged child diminishing, the advantaged child having all the privileges of a middle class education and a home background or a combination of the two. The gap has closed at approximately three years old but the middle class average ability child has streaked ahead by the time they are six years old. The other child will never catch up no matter how much palliative care is given. These are good studies as this is the reality of the situation.
Since 1990 and Mr. Gordon Brown's increases in levels of funding available to the Sure Start programme, the United Kingdom has experienced a significant reduction of 3.1% in child poverty, which is linked to the levels of investment. In terms of the child development argument, pre-school education generally enhances all round development throughout childhood, which is something one hears thrown back and forth all of the time. It is particularly important that children get a high quality group experience at approximately three years of age as strong advantages are attached to it. The long-term effects of high quality kindergarten care in particular are lifetime effects in that they do not disappear when one goes to school but give an advantage that stays with one throughout life.
America has carried out a number of fantastic studies on very high quality investments in disadvantaged families, such as the Perry Pre-school Project. The children involved are now older than 40 years of age and, as such, there is good data on what happened to them. They did not just do better in school but got better jobs, were earning more money at 40 years old and had better family lives. In other words, they experienced all the outcomes we want for children. High quality is the critical factor.
The matter is not addressed in our report but I am doing so now as, being a psychologist, I have an interest in the area and believed the committee's members might be interested in some of the findings. Are children better off if their mothers stay at home? It depends on the quality of child care received inside and outside the home. If a parent, usually a mother, is educated and very happy to be at home full-time to take care of his or her child up to three years of age, going to pre-school would not be an advantage due to the significant advantages provided at home as long as parents are not under financial pressure, the mother is not missing out on her career and so on.
Full-time working in the first year of life may have some adverse effects, a possibility that has been discussed back and forth. A recent United Kingdom study suggests there are some behavioural issues involved if group care in excess of 30 hours per week is experienced in the first year or two of life. I choose to adhere to the largest ongoing study in the US, which has cost billions of dollars and is the best study ever carried out in this area. The children involved are approximately 13 years of age and the data is of high quality. I will not go into detail and will brief the members if they are interested.
Emotional security, the issue most parents worry about, has effects on self-esteem, how one does in school and gets on with one's friends. In psychology it is a building block. Emotional security is what parents want their babies to have at one year of age, namely, a basic and fundamental trust in their parents to take care of them and be relied upon. The study's results were that, irrespective of the amount of time spent in child care, age of entry or quality of child care, the proportion of children of working mothers with secure emotional attachments is exactly the same as those reared at home. This study was carried out in a scientific way and, as the subject of my PhD, I know much about it. The results are definitive.
If one were to go to any suburb or country town and take a sample, one would find that approximately 62% of children are securely attached while the rest have a variety of insecure attachments. Marginalised, deprived people have lower levels of security due to the amount of stress in their lives. The greatest determinant of insecure attachments is not whether a mother works but whether a mother is responsive emotionally, which can be measured scientifically. If a mother is psychologically unresponsive, is depressed, did not get proper mothering or so on and her baby is placed in poor quality child care for many hours, the situation will be worsened. Such mothers are more likely to place their babies in many hours of child care as they often do not like the job of looking after small babies. They know they have certain difficulties in this respect. It is a complex issue. Children in poor quality child care can still be secure if their mothers are responsive to them. The lesson is that mothers still count as the most important determinant, which is both fantastic and scary news.
There is an issue surrounding child behaviour. The more time children spend in child care during their first two years, in excess of 30 hours per week or six hours per day, the American study showed there was a higher probability that those children would be unco-operative, demanding and have other slight behavioural problems. In America, they were called smart but mean children at the age of three or four years, namely, demanding, egocentric, etc. This caused a large furore in the US, including huge headlines in newspapers, and people are still quoting the study. I recently replied to a columnist in The Irish Times and corrected her perception of this matter as she was quoting earlier studies.
The children were followed up when they went to school at five years of age and the effects had disappeared. We do not know whether they will recur but the situation is not as dire as people are painting it. It may be a temporary phenomenon. The explanation is that children who spend much time in group care, even as politicians must spend much time with very competitive parties, must learn to take care of themselves earlier than children raised at home who may learn that lesson when they go to school. Perhaps politicians are slightly more demanding because they must compete for their places.
This situation may recur and be the price people pay for children spending too much time in group settings. Of the 17% of children with problems, the problems were not at the clinical level, namely, the children did not require clinical psychologists, child care clinics or anything like that. They were children who were a little bit bolder than others. If one went to any school in Dublin or elsewhere in the country and used this particular test, one would find that 17% of any class is bolder than the rest. In other words, 17% is the normal proportion in a continuum of behaviour. We must keep our eyes on this matter. I will not speak about cognitive and educational development because we do not have enough time.
How much child care is too much? There is no scientifically established threshold. My personal view rather than the NESF's is that, erring on the side of caution, it would be ideal for babies to have full-time access to one parent for as long as possible in the first year. If a parent wants to or must go to work, it would be better to keep it under 30 hours per week or, preferably, 20 hours. A total of 44 hours is too much for babies, especially those in group care. That is the psychological justification for extending maternal leave in the first year and the option of part time work in the early years. In all matters, quality counts.
The NESF recommends a national early age development programme, using the acronym NEAD, referring to the Irish word for nest, a place to cherish the young. We divided this programme into three segments. In the first 12 months we suggest the current provision of maternity leave should be increased over the next five budgets by two weeks per year so that by 2009 maternity leave will be six months. A mother will have the right to remain at home and be paid for the first six months of the baby's life. Additional leave taken at the mother's cost should be increased to ten weeks and parental leave should be increased to 16 weeks. By 2009 a mother should have the right to remain at home with pay for six months and she or her partner will have the right to remain at home, unpaid, for the next six months. If one wants to, and can afford it, some combination of parents can remain at home full time for the first year of the child's life.
I remind the committee that no other EU country provides less parental leave than Ireland. This will be an issue for employers.
