Early Childhood Education and Development: The government’s best investment decision

Early years of childhood are a vital period for language acquisition, laying the foundation for higher cognitive thinking, and learning teamwork and resilience

 By Venya De Silva

The government recently launched the first phase of the formulation of a national policy on Early Childhood Education & Development (ECED). The new initiative aims to establish a comprehensive policy that applies across central and provincial governments, which is accessible to all children, offering a structured approach to early childhood education, and complements wider educational reforms. While the shift from a fragmented policy approach to a unified, holistic one is always welcome, it is the ‘triple benefits’ of investing in early childhood that are the real cause for celebration. Could this recent initiative be the government’s best investment decision? 

Benefits to children

The foundations of the brain’s architecture are formed between the ages of 0-5 years. We now know that 80 percent of the brain’s structure takes shape during the first three years of life, and 90 percent of the brain’s structure is formed by the age of 5 (UNICEF 2015). We also know that experiences – both positive and negative – in these early years of childhood affect the development of brain architecture in a way that later experiences do not.  

 Early years education is distinctly different to formal education: the emphasis is on play-based learning, with nurturing caregivers, in developmentally rich contexts. The early years are a vital period for language acquisition, laying the foundation for higher cognitive thinking, and learning fundamental social skills such as teamwork and resilience.  

In addition to the scientific evidence above, investing in ECED also makes sense from both efficiency and equity perspectives. The Nobel-prize winning economist Professor James Heckman has shown that, while the costs of high-quality early childhood education programmes are high, the return on investment in education is highest when governments invest in the early years. Furthermore, while the impacts of childhood poverty and malnutrition are difficult to reverse later in life, and may last a lifetime, investing in ECED “is a cost-effective way to close achievement gaps before they widen” (OECD 2025). 

With an overwhelming 42.2% of children under age five estimated to be multidimensionally poor in Sri Lanka (DCS, OPHI, and UNICEF, 2021), addressing these disadvantages at age 5 – when free, compulsory school education begins in Sri Lanka – will simply be too late. 

Benefits to households

Investing in ECED benefits more than children – it has a direct impact on household incomes, through the possibility of the increased labour force participation of those who are currently engaged in the unpaid work of caring for children. 

In Sri Lanka, women make up 72% of the working-age population that remains ‘economically inactive’—neither employed nor seeking work. Among them, an estimated 57% are out of the labour force due to household responsibilities, including childcare (Labour Force Survey, 2023).

Verité Research has been conducting research to better understand how households – and women in particular – view their role as caregivers, how they balance paid and unpaid labour, and their perceptions of external (private and community) providers of care. A study on The Costs of Doing a Job for Urban Women in Sri Lanka (2022), showed that even among women who were willing to outsource childcare, the costs of working (both monetary and non-monetary) came close to or outweighed earnings. 

In a pilot study (2024) on the care economy conducted by Verité Research, over 60% of those surveyed agreed that external childcare services can contribute to children’s social and educational development. However, 78% of the sample felt that external childcare provides less personalised attention than at-home care, and 75% agreed with the sentiment that external services lead to distancing between parents and children. 

The benefits to households from enabling women who want to or need to work, seek employment, are real and extensive, ranging from access to more regular and nutritious meals, to better mental health for mothers – and therefore improving the care they provide to others – and enhancing household resilience in times of economic crisis. However, realising this benefit will mean expanding the choices that are available to households in ways that are meaningful to families. Both in terms of quality and affordability, working with families to determine ‘what’ matters in the early childhood years is a question that we should the take time to answer, if we want the new ECED policy to really have impact. 

Benefits to the economy

Investing in ECED also benefits the economy – not in the least, due to its two-generational impact on the labour force. In the short term, it is an investment in removing the barriers to labour force participation and economic growth (a 2018 study conducted by the McKinsey Global Institute, for example, estimated that Sri Lanka stands to gain an estimated 14% increase in GDP by investing in measures to reduce barriers to female labour force participation). Investing in ECED is also a long-term investment in the country’s human capital – and perhaps, the answer to enduring debates in Sri Lanka, about how the quality and equity of the education system can be improved. 

The best investment 

Investing in good quality ECED is expensive. But there is ample evidence to support the case for why investing in ECED will be worth every rupee spent and more. However, in the past, Sri Lanka’s expenditure on the early childhood years has been one of the lowest in the world. In contrast to the average expenditure of 0.03 percent of GDP by middle-income countries, Sri Lanka spends a mere 0.0001 percent of GDP on early childhood education (World Bank 2018).

Furthermore, the government will need to envision ECED programmes that prioritise both affordability and quality, to avoid inadvertently widening rather than closing the attainment gap for children who stand to benefit the most from investments in ECED. 

With the myriad benefits of investing in ECED tantalisingly close, the months ahead will reveal the extent to which the present government is willing to commit to making an investment that really matters, to children, households, and the economy. 

Dr. Venya De Silva is a Social Anthropologist and a Research Director at Verité Research. Research support for this article was provided by Isurika Perera, who is a Junior Research Analyst at Verité Research