[Reading-hall-of-fame] SROI in Early Parenthood Education

[tsticht at znet.com]

Colleagues: The following note calls attention to an article in the current
issue of the American Educator. I hope it is of interest.

Tom Sticht



9/22/2011

Social Returns to Investment (SROI) in Early Parenthood Education

Tom Sticht                                                             
International Consultant in Adult Education

The National Institute of  Adult Continuing Education (NIACE) in the United
Kingdom has recently released three reports which examine the social return
to investments (SROI) in adult learning. In contrast to traditional
estimates of the economic benefits in calculating the return to investments
(ROI) in adult education and learning, estimates of SROI focus upon the
multiple social benefits to the individual and the individual’s family and
community.

One of the reports from the NIACE is concerned with the social value of
adult learning for children and young people’s services. According to the
report, “Adults in families hold the key to facilitating or obstructing the
efforts of public services to help their children. Working with parents and
other family members to help to resolve their problems enables the best
environment for their child. This not only helps families in the short
term, but, by providing sustainable solutions, helps families to help
themselves and prevents future increasingly costly interventions being
necessary. In the current environment of substantially reduced funding,
government at both national and local level realise the benefit of
investing now to prevent costly interventions in the future.”


This focus upon the social benefits of adult learning for preventing future
costly interventions with their children is consistent with the need for
early parenthood education which I have discussed in the Fall 2011 issue of
the American Educator, a journal of the American Federation of Teachers.
(online at http://aft.org/pdfs/americaneducator/fall2011/Sticht.pdf).


In that article the intergenerational social benefits of parent’s education
is documented with references to (1) the statistical data showing the
relationship of parent’s education level to the subsequent literacy
achievement of their children; (2) the transfer of vocabulary and
conceptual knowledge from parents to their children via oral language; (3)
the research evidence indicating that much of the benefits of early
childhood education result from the education of parents which the programs
provide, and (4) the intergenerational transfer of character traits and
other non-cognitive aspects of children’s development following their
parents attendance in basic education programs.


Consistent with the NIACE position that social returns to investments in
adult learning may prevent the need for future interventions with children,
I argue that  “if we focus our limited resources on reaching first-time
parents, then one “dose” of parenting education could also benefit
succeeding children. Given the intergenerational nature of lit¬eracy and
character, that one dose could even benefit future generations. It is time
that we move from thinking about educa¬tion in terms of each child, to
thinking about education from a multiple-life-cycles perspective.”


Of course, investments in adult learning not only produces SROI but also
economic ROI. By investing in the education of adults we can improve the
educability of their children. This produces what I call “double duty
dollars”. We get better educated adults for our expended dollars, and then
we get improved educability of the adults’ children for free!
There is a considerable SROI as children receive both the benefits of their
own learning and that of better educated parents.


This intergenerational, SROI from following a multiple-life-cycles education
policy has been expressed by a former UNESCO International Literacy Price
Jurist, Rosa Maria Torres, in an online internet article. In this article
she maintains, “Adult Basic Education and Learning (ABLE) cannot continue
to be viewed in isolation, as a separate educational goal 
 but rather as
part of the overall education, training and learning system and policy at
national and international level. 
To educate children, it is essential to
educate adults, not only (illiterate, poor) parents and caregivers
(including teachers) but adults in general. 
it is adults and the adult
society who make the critical decisions that affect children’s well-being
and development, at home, at school.... This is the importance of educating
adults, for their own sake and for the sake of children, for the present and
for future generations. 
In fact, as we have argued elsewhere
 the
children’s right to education should include the right to educated
parents.”


By investing in early parenthood education, we can receive the immediate
benefits of increased adult competence and greater productivity at work,
home, and in the community, and we can move a long way toward the
realization of the ideal of giving children the right to educated parents.


tsticht at aznet.net