Experts Discuss the Importance of Early Childhood Education

Lopez spoke about her experience leading aeioTU, an organization focused on early childhood education that says it has reached the lives of about 2 million children. She said that this work “was about inviting others, understanding what was needed, and working in a very collaborative way.”

“It’s not just designing an educational experience, copy it, and paste it,” she said. “It’s understanding each context, understanding different regions, different daily lives, rituals, and conflicts, and problems, and different situations.”

Devercelli said that, compared to about a decade ago, more government officials and education leaders are listing early childhood education as one of their priorities, which is a good sign of progress. But along with that progress, she said, come more challenges. 

“Unfortunately, there’s a lot of risk in the world today for children: climate, conflict, technology that can be both a positive or a negative,” she said. “So we haven’t solved all the challenges we have, but there are all these new challenges around the corner, and I think that investments in early childhood are going to be absolutely critical to address those challenges. And we know that young children are going to be the most vulnerable.”

Shonkoff emphasized the importance of early childhood beyond education as well.

“I’d like to put on the table the idea that would be helpful if a lot of people at this meeting stop thinking about this as early childhood education only, and think about it as early childhood development,” he said. “This is not just an educational issue.”