The cost of developmentally vulnerable children

From The brain drain on the economy may be child's play

By Pete McMartin, Vancouver Sun

According to a recent study of kindergarten-aged children
commissioned by, of all people, the B.C. Business Council, University
of B.C. researchers with the school's Human Early Learning Partnership
found that so many children entering kindergarten fail to meet the
usual developmental benchmarks that they represent an enormous in-house
brain drain on the province's economy.

These are not small
numbers. According to the HELP study, which tracked 140,000 students
over a decade, just under 30 per cent of B.C. children entering
kindergarten are "developmentally vulnerable" — lacking in those basic
skills they need to thrive in school and in the future. The study
considers a rate of child vulnerability above 10 per cent as
"biologically unnecessary."

"Economic analyses," the study
states, "reveal this depletion (in human capital) will cause B.C. to
forgo 20 per cent GDP growth over the next 60 years.

"The
economic value of this loss is equivalent to investing $401.5 billion
today at a rate of 3.5 per cent interest. Unnecessary vulnerability in
B.C. is thus costing the provincial economy a sum of money that is 10
times the total provincial debt load."

That loss in human capital
could mean the difference of B.C. being in the economic forefront of
developed nations in the future or being mired somewhere in the
underperforming middle of the pack.