Some children from disadvantaged1 households do achieve strong learning outcomes, including at similar levels to children from high SES households. These resilient children represent a minority of disadvantaged children. Nonetheless, they demonstrate that equitable outcomes are possible and they show education leaders and policy makers the factors that make early equity possible.
Achieving a level playing field for disadvantaged children requires action
Delays in learning become more entrenched as children progress through primary school. Thus, avoiding or at least reducing equity gaps in the early years is more effective and less costly than attempting to do so later in schooling.
Early equity is a lever that can transform overall equity within education systems, Achieving early equity, however, requires deliberate, at-scale action, before children arrive at school. Education leaders and policy makers can improve early equity through:
Providing children with access to early childhood education and care (ECEC)
Taking measures to ensure ECEC is of high quality
Supporting strong links between ECEC teachers and parents
Improving the quality of children’s home learning environments.
Using all of these measures shifts disadvantaged five-year-olds from being 12 months of development behind their more advantaged peers to being on an equal footing, with every chance of educational success in front of them.