This opinion piece was written by Tarun Varma and Emily Dew. For more like this, see our early childhood newsfeed.

Governments and organisations around the world are aware of the massive potential of high quality early childhood care and education (ECEC) to positively impact social development and mobility. The G20 in Buenos Aires just announced an initiative focused on early childhood.

This increase in focus is timely. But how can policymakers leverage what we know from the history of childcare, market forces in the public goods space and recent advances in technology to empower parents and support purposeful ECEC-parent partnerships?

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The gulf between quality and parents

Ensuring access to good quality ECEC comes with a few challenges.

Firstly, in the very early years (0-3), parents are inclined to opt for family based care. Even in nations like Denmark and Sweden with high quality centre based provision, only 55% of parents choose formal care. That means governments need to reach parents at home.

Secondly, as parents have come to realise the importance of early care, demand has grown and often been supplemented by the private sector. The “market” solves well for problems parents face, i.e. ease of transport and timings aligned to work schedules. These aspects improve choice but parents still do not have perfect knowledge of what high quality ECEC looks like. Hence, parents tend to make imperfect choices based on cost and convenience.

Thirdly, we know the three biggest factors influencing young children’s learning are: duration of time spent in pre-school, level of maternal education and quality of the home learning environment. Yet many parents struggle to engage children at home in order to complement formal care. Targeted investment in parent information can empower and drive a significant shift in the sector.

However, with parents the battle is actually half won.

The vast majority of parents are deeply concerned with what the world will look like in 10-30 years. They are keen to understand how they can equip their children to thrive and succeed. What is often lacking is access to the right information at the right time to support this strong vision.

While governments and think tanks conduct considerable research on preparing the future workforce that begins with optimal child development, this research is rarely parent-friendly or easily accessible by parents.

Shifting the lens to focus on parents, to break research into concrete parenting actions and experiences, can unlock the potential of parents as active participants in this space. There are a few ways existing innovations can be unlocked by policymakers.

Leverage existing innovation: The fact that parents make choices based on convenience and time is a bonus to the digital economy that relies on apps and “playlists”. Easypeasy, Saarthi, Vroom and Kinedu are a few example firms that make information on child development, parenting strategies, play and literacy accessible via the phone across developing and developed markets.

Policymakers should encourage use of these apps via existing health and education systems such as during ante-natal developmental visits. An “offline” system to follow up and understand usage and comparison will help grow a public sector supported market for these apps. In the long run, this online and offline mix is healthy to support a range of parents.

Build a firm base of parenting skills: A solution that has worked well for learning offline and online, with the opportunity to cater to multiple learning styles, are massively open online courses (MOOCs). Policymakers have long supported pre-natal classes and parenting tips for young parents. Using the best features of MOOCs can help elevate the strengths of existing programs at the same time as increasing accessibility across locations and languages.

In the UK, institutions such as the National Childcare Trust offer ante and post natal courses for as little at 73p (92¢) a week in central London. Moving the course content online is a wise investment. The easy ability to complement offline groups will facilitate community building. Over time, moving courses could reduce costs expanding, changing or improving curriculum.

Enhance parent-teacher collaboration: Since home learning environments impact early childhood outcomes, parent-teacher collaboration is an important area. The need to re-imagine this collaboration around time-poor parents and teachers is growing. Easy-to-use communication apps such as Famly, Tadpoles and Storypark are popular examples facilitating flexible, child-centred communication. The apps address trust, breaking barriers with “hard to reach” parents struggling with language, culture, or other personal challenges.

Encouraging teacher training courses to have a clear strand on communicating in the digital age and using technology should be a clear policy goal. Technology will not solve social issues but user-centred innovations have the potential to bring data and knowledge about parent behaviour to policymakers. This granular view can help craft parent programs at lower cost than possible before.

Childcare of the future

Parents have a huge role to play in the enhancement of ECEC quality. If policymakers tweak existing solutions for families that are mobile and multi-lingual, they can address complex issues around childcare. The challenge is to invest smartly with a schema to let data from tech feedback on what works before committing capital or picking a few pathways. — Tarun Varma & Emily Dew

(Picture credit: Unsplash)

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