Findings from a 40-year experiment, which tracked three-and four-year-olds into adulthood, found that children who attended the High/Scope Perry Pre-school programme in the United States had higher-paid jobs, were more likely to graduate from high school and had committed fewer crimes.
The High/Scope Educational Research Foundation, which has been following 123 low-income black children from Michigan since 1962, released the findings in the US last month.
Larry Schweinhart, president of the High/Scope Educational Research Foundation, said, 'These findings can be expected of any Head Start, state pre-school, or child care programme similar to the programme that High/Scope co-ordinated and then studied.'
Some children in the study were randomly selected to take part in the half-day High/Scope Perry Pre-school programme in the early 1960s; the rest received no form of early education. The 58 children were studied from the ages of three to 11, and again at 14, 15, 19 and 27 years.
At the age of 40, 76 per cent of the group in high-quality early education were employed and earning $5,000 more than the non-programme group. Only 62 per cent of the children who did not go on the programme were employed and half had a savings account, compared with 76 percent on the programme.
Fewer of the early-educated children went on to be arrested for violent, drug-related or property crimes. But 36 per cent of those in the Perry contingent had been arrested five times or more - only 14 per cent less than the others.
Those who had not had early education were regularly outperformed by their counterparts on language and intellectual tests throughout their childhood and adolescence, and 65 per cent of the programme group graduated from high school, against 45 per cent of the non-programme group.
The director of High/Scope UK, Joan Norris, said, 'The most striking part of the study is that it has continued to make a difference to people's lives. In the broadest sense, it has life-long benefits.'
High/Scope has been used in the UK since the early 1980s.
For more information on the study, 'Lifetime effects: the High/Scope Perry pre-school study through age 40', see www.highscope.org.
In its 'plan-do-review' approach, children express their intentions, engage purposefully in activities and then review what they have been doing with an early years practitioner.
The study documents a return to society of more than $17 dollars for every tax dollar invested in the early years programme - approximately 10 for every pound spent.
