Early childhood, beginning in infancy, is a period of profound advances in reasoning, language acquisition, and problem solving, and importantly, a child’s environment can dramatically influence the degree and pace of these advances. A critical time to shape productivity is from birth to age five, when the brain develops rapidly to build the foundation of cognitive and character skills necessary for success in school, health, career and life. It is therefore imperative to parents to immerse their children into early childhood education to foster cognitive skills along with attentiveness, motivation, self-control and sociability—the character skills that turn knowledge into know-how and people into productive citizens.

The concern of many parents, however, about early childhood development program especially prekindergarten education could be the price tag. I often hear from parents in our neighborhood that they prefer to invest in their children’s postkindergarten education than kindergarten itself. “Kinder pa lang naman kase. Saka na kapag highchool or college na,” “para lang sa mga may kaya at mayayaman yan,” are the words commonly expressed by parents on the issue of prekindergarten education. Their reaction is understandable considering the economic situation we are in. But is early childhood education really worth investing?

James Joseph Heckman, an American economist and Nobel laureate, has an answer to that question: “The highest rate of return in early childhood development comes from investing as early as possible, from birth through age five, in disadvantaged families. Starting at age three or four is too little too late, as it fails to recognize that skills beget skills in a complementary and dynamic way. Efforts should focus on the first years for the greatest efficiency and effectiveness. The best investment is in quality early childhood development from birth to five for disadvantaged children and their families.”

There are myriad ways how you can jumpstart pre-kindergarten education of your young ones. You can enroll your kids to preschool programs, devise your own curriculum, or hire a coach for you. It is just so timely that this Parent’s Guide to UPKAT is introduced to help them prepare their children not only to pass UPKAT, but more importantly for their pre-kindergarten preparedness program.

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