EDITORIAL: Early childhood development is critical to creating lifelong learners

March 17, 2023

Studies have shown time and time again that when pre-school education is placed at a premium in a child’s life the better they are at being lifelong learners and adults.

The latest IDB seminar going on in Panama right now has restarted that critical discussion on getting our babies prepared in the event something like a COVID-19 happens again in the next 20 years.

Right now many Caribbean countries are grappling with students who have missed critical periods of their education due to the lockdowns. Many of them will never go back into a classroom on top of the probable 60 percent- thereabouts- of young people who won’t go any higher to college level studies in any event.

This IDB seminar is talking about putting in place social protection and buffers ahead of time. This is thinking ahead and the IDB is leading a very important charge in this process. Sometimes people out there do undertake important, lifesaving programmes that the average person will not even notice happened let alone be cognizant of it to take it for granted.

We cannot lose any more people if we don’t have to. I shudder to think what will happen in the next ten years when these same people that missed their critical high school years due to the pandemic and what will happen when they come to the point when they try to settle down into a productive life?

These people, obviously, need stop gap interventions for adults. That’s for another seminar. But we hope it can happen for these people.

In the meantime, however, let’s put some ease for the people coming up behind us within the next 50 years from now who will have problems they don’t even know they will have.

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