U.S. should embrace pre-schooling: study

By Michael Kahn

LONDON (Reuters) - The United States will fall behind other countries in education if it does not embrace pre-schooling, the author of a British study said on Thursday.

The study showed that children at age 10 who had attended preschool scored 27 percent higher in maths and performed better in other subjects as well compared to boys and girls who did not start their education as early.

"What we have found is that the effects of preschool are long-term and last through primary school," said Edward Melhuish, a psychologist at Birkbeck University of London. who led the study in the journal Science.

Universal preschool is available in places like Britain, Scandinavia and France but not in the United States, where the idea is the subject of debate, Melhuish said.

With China investing money to make preschool available more widely as part of a push to develop a highly skilled workforce, the United States will fall behind if it does not do the same, he said.

"America is going to lose out in the long term if it doesn't adopt universal preschool education," he said in a telephone interview. "It is one of the few highly developed countries that doesn't have close to universal preschool."

The researchers followed 3,000 children representative of Britain through primary school and plan to do the same as they continue their secondary school education.

(Reporting by Michael Kahn; editing by Angus MacSwan)