THE Early Childhood Commission (ECC) has made another leap in helping to improve the public understanding of key issues affecting children in the region, through the publication of three important studies conducted over the last five years that were released Thursday during a conference hosted at the Jamaica Pegasus Hotel.

The three studies represent collaboration between the ECC, the University of the West Indies and the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) which provided funding.

The studies, Do early childhood experiences affect development in the next generation? The Jamaica Intergenerational Study; JA KIDS: The Jamaican birth cohort study 2011; and the Pilot study on parenting interventions in the Caribbean region, were carried out by a number of academic stalwarts including Professor Maureen Samms-Vaughan, Professor Susan Walker, and Dr Susan Chang, who have been heralding the reformation of the early childhood sector.

Education Minister Ronald Thwaites, in commending the researchers and the IDB, said the studies were highly appreciated, even as he pointed to a need for stability in homes to foster better development of the nation’s children. He pointed out that the IDB in particular has always provided a broad-based support for early childhood development in Jamaica and within the general Caribbean region through their funding and technical assistance programmes.

“The bank has demonstrated its commitment over the years to ensuring that the young among our population get a fighting chance to develop survival skills that will enable them to maximise their full potential as they mature into adulthood,” he said.

Thwaites noted that his ministry plans to undertake a number of initiatives to address issues affecting early childhood development such as increasing the complement of special education teachers and expanding the networks of diagnostic centres across the island. The sector has been given a boost with an $11 billion budget, which represents a vast increase over the $3 billion last year. A particular area of focus, he said, will be the improvement of teacher quality to better this sector.

“It remains a matter of concern that only about 30 per cent of all of the early childhood practitioners in this country have training. This remains an important challenge for us,” the minister asserted.

Vice-chancellor of UWI Professor E Nigel Harris said that while this increased attention on early childhood education has not always been looked at favourably, this sort of focus is extremely crucial to safeguarding the future of the country.

“Our young children are society’s future leaders; they are the entrepreneurs, workers and citizens and investing in them during their most current critical phase of human development is of course of utmost importance,” he said.

The professor pointed to both the long-term and short-term benefits of this sort of investment.

“In the short-term, investment in early childhood development translates into considerable cost savings and efficiency gains in the health and education sectors as children who benefit from early childhood development services are more likely to be healthy, ready to learn and upon entering primary school, they stay in school longer and perform well throughout their schooling,” he said, while noting that for the long-term, “investment in early childhood yields socially well-adjusted and resourceful adults who contribute to the country’s economic growth and help break the inter-generational cycle of poverty.”

Meanwhile, country representative for the IDB, Therese Turner-Jones believes that focusing on the early years of development could help to counteract some of the social ills plaguing the region.

“I don’t think we understand enough about the importance of early childhood development and how it affects not just social development but also development of the human person throughout our lives,” she said.