Positive economic impact
Posted Sep 1, 2010 03:26:19 AM.
This article is more than 5 years old.
There will be a big bang for Ontario’s all-day learning buck. As the province prepares to roll out full-day kindergarten for four and five year olds this fall, a report from the Centre for Spatial Economics says there will be a financial return on that investment. The Centre estimates a return ratio of 2.4:1 for every dollar invested in the program.
“It improves the children’s academic achievement and therefore the college or university degrees that they will achieve will improve their future earnings,” economist Robert Fairholm, author of the report, explains to 570’s Gary Doyle Show. “You also have a reduction in grade retention so (students) are not held back extra years which reduces social costs.”
The first phase of full-day kindergarten starts next week for about 35,000 kids in 600 Ontario schools. Twenty-one schools in Waterloo Region will be part of the program, which will receive $500-million in provincial funding over the next two years.
“There are a number of immediate effects that will increase economic activity and government revenues versus the longterm costs,” says Fairholm. “All of this means the benefits exceed the costs.”
One of the immediate effects will be additional jobs for teachers and early educators, who earn about $20 per hour.
Fairholm says his research also finds a reduction in expenses for special education along with a reduction in smoking and crime rates for students who participate in an early learning, all-day program.
But there is one caveat. Fairholm says without quality care at both ends of the full-day kindergarten spectrum, the program will not be successful.
“There is no point in just expanding the system if you’re delivering poor quality childcare,” Fairholm points out. “In Quebec, they expanded their system very quickly and they had some detrimental effects at first.”
