Nursery lesson for high earners

IT IS probably not what teenagers waiting for exam results want to hear. All that struggle to get in to the best universities to get the best job prospects may be misguided. New research shows that the route to a bigger pay packet in adult life lies in nursery school.

The research by Harvard University found that the better the nursery education, the more money people earned in adult life.

The study shows that by the age of 27, those who attended formal pre-school activities are, on average, taking home around 1,000 a year more than their peers who did not receive a nursery education.

The researchers also found that class size and, crucially, the quality of the teacher, also played a major part in which children became more financially successful.

The study was carried out among 12,000 former pupils - now aged 30 - by economists at Harvard university, who wanted to find out if attending nursery school had a financial effect. Although studies have shown university graduation boosts income in later life, little research had been carried out on the effect of attending nursery classes.

As thousands of Scottish school pupils eagerly await vital exam results this week, the Harvard team says a good nursery education can impart skills that last a lifetime, including patience, discipline, manners, perseverance that will serve those who receive it well as they enter the workplace.

The Harvard researchers were able to track the pupils as they had taken part in an earlier long-term education study programme into educational achievement. They then used tax records to assess their incomes. Raj Chetty, the economist who led the team, said: "We don't really care about test scores. We care about adult outcomes."

Douglas Staiger, an economist who studies education, said the findings were fascinating and potentially important. "The worry has been that education didn't translate into earnings," he said. "But this is telling us that it does."

The findings have global implications for nursery care at a time when western economies are cutting public spending. Although the Scottish Government has pledged free nursery care for every child over the age of three, some councils are cutting the number of fully-qualified nursery teachers to save money.

Sue Palmer, a child development expert and author of Toxic Childhood, said that the benefits of nursery education were long-lasting: "What is learned in the first few years has an profound effect on our learning capacity, habits of behaviour and social skills. It's absolutely critical in building self-confidence."