There are five possible reasons for the recent upsurge of interest in early years education.
The first is the idea that investment in the first years of a child's life is likely to deliver results. The early years are emotionally, physically, socially and intellectually important. The Jesuits, on this as so much else, were right. Children make relatively greater progress in their first months and years than they do at any other point. So the Government could be on to a winner. Invest early and millions of individuals may be helped to make a go of their lives. Our society will be stronger and the drain on the public purse much less.
Second, the Government is desperate to deliver. Beneath the repulsively superficial rhetoric of social exclusion beats a genuine desire to make things better for those in poverty. The prime minister's enthusiasm for early years education as a policy initiative that just might nip all the educational and social problems in the bud is predictable.
The third and fourth reasons have nothing to do with education. We have on the one hand the general impact of feminism and on the other the fact that many mothers want or need to get back to work as soon as they can. Early years education is as much about the emancipation of women as about the education of the child. The child may, of course, benefit from his attendance at the nursery class or playgroup. He may have benefited a great deal more if he had stayed at home with his mum.
And finally there is the fact that experts in early years education have always worked hard to make their voices heard. They are a persistent and chippy lobby. Our national propensity to coo contentedly at the prospect of happy infants in the sandpit means their arguments are taken more seriously than they perhaps deserve.
* Adapted from Comparing Pre-school Standards, available for 7 to Nursery World readers from Politeia, 22 Charing Cross Road, London WC2H 0QP (020 7240 5070).
