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The first five years of a child's life are crucial to his or her development. During this period, children learn at a faster rate than at any other time in their lives, developing basic cognitive and socio-emotional skills that are fundamental to their future performance at school and later as adults. These skills also underpin their general well-being - how they interact with others and how they cope with future successes and failures, both professionally and in their personal lives. To foster this development, children need constant interaction with, care and attention from their parents and other caregivers.
This is why early childhood education also plays an important role. Research findings show that high-quality early childhood education and care programs have beneficial long-term effects on cognitive and socio-emotional skills, which has prompted many countries to increase the number of such programs in recent decades. In addition, there is growing interest in improving the quality of early childhood education programs and children's home environment, to give every child a good start from an early age.
Empirical research remains limited, however, on how children's skills develop and are interconnected at an early age. Similarly, it is important to gather more information on the influential environmental factors in the home and in early childhood education programs that promote or hinder children's development. Nor is there a common framework or comparable empirical information on these subjects from one country to another, which limits peer learning and the sharing of best practices between countries.
That's why a group of OECD countries launched an international study on children's early learning. The International Study on Early Learning and Child Well-Being was then launched in response to this demand, to help countries better support children's early development and improve their long-term well-being.
