Årets Pris 2016. Tale af Forkvinde og Tidligere Børne- og undervisningsminister

Tale ved Forkvinde, Cecilia Virgin

The foundation ”A good start in life”, is very pleased that you, Professor James Heckman, are the receiver of the Annual prize.

Your unique and exceptional research has illuminated the economic and human payoff of early childhood intervention.

The beginning of life is a crucial time, when the child's personality is founded and the capacity for empathy and attachment develops. You have proved that social skills are founded very early in life and that is why it is important to educate the parents early – actually already in pregnancy.

It is indeed a challenge to diminish social differences. It is by doing what you have done. By cooperating with other professions in practice. To learn, to listen and to plan together.

Your worldwide known “Heckman curve” is referred to in many applications for funding and often mentioned in discussions, when a holistic approach is argued for. You have been the background figure for many important projects here in Scandinavia. The first one was Leksandsmodellen, the Leksand project in Sweden, then Familie med hjerte, ”Family with heart” in Holstebro and the last one “Iværksætterne” or in English “Family starts up” here in Århus.

Your research has proved, that if all health and social professionals put a lot of effort to qualify the children to make good use of their potentials, the consequence when they grow up is, that they are much more competent to live a good life. They will be more healthy, there will be less social and economic problems, less divorces, less alcohol problems and even the crime rate decreases.

So again, the highest rate of return in early childhood development comes from investing as early as possible.

Society gains large sums by intervening early instead of repairing later. As well for the society as for the individual this indeed is a win win situation. We are lucky in Denmark, that you are the one, who is Chairman of the Advisory Board for Trygfondens Center for Child research. In this framework you help us with solid knowledge to find out the very best way to invest in children´s welfare.

With this price the foundation wants to spread your thoughts all over Denmark. We hope to encourage decision makers to look beyond short term solutions and focus on early holistic and multidisciplinary solutions.

Your  research not only gives the children A good start in life but helps the children to be better off all  through their lives. 

Tale ved tidligere Børne- og undervisningsminister Christine Antorini

Dear professor James Heckman,

In the occasion of presenting “Årets Pris 2016” -The Award of the Year – 2016, is it a great honor for me, on behalf of “Fonden – En god start i livet” (The foundation – a good start in life) and as the chairwoman of the Danish Parliament’s committee for Education and Research, to say a few words about your research and how it has impacted children’s lives. /and what it has meant to children’s lives. I’ll bet a crate of beer, as we say in Denmark, that when it comes to research concerning children, you are one of the most well-known researchers and someone whose research is most widely used in Denmark. Once you have reached the point where your name is actually THE term you use when explaining a point, you have become popular. You can “google” something you need to know or you can ask for an “aspirin” (Panodil) if you have a headache. Both are originally company names that have become a part of the everyday language. Then there is “The Heckman-curve”. There is no need for explaining. Everybody knows that it means that an early investment in children’s lives in relation to wellbeing and learning is one of those investments that gives the best return to society. You have a background in mathematics and economy, and that might not be the most typical background for researchers that deal with children’s wellbeing and learning. Especially not, when your conclusion is that we should invest a lot more in childhood. It is a conclusion that we have heard many times from other researchers, who aren’t economists, and from people working with children and their unions and from local politicians as well as politicians in parliament. Mind you - of course only as long as those politicians are not in office and by that – have control of the funding when distributing the few resources between nursing homes, schools, healthcare and many other social tasks which are all very important and which cost a lot of money.  However, your research is so convincing concerning the importance and the effect of an early effort or investment in children’s lives, that it is impossible to get around, also for the leaders who control the cash box. Nevertheless, just as easy as “The Heckman-curve” can be used to argue, that there is a need for more funds to the early effort to improve children’s lives, just as easy “The Heckman-curve” can be misused or misunderstood. The case is that the first answer to a problem or challenge can never be “send more money”. There are often many other solutions, which are a lot better and more efficient that simply using more money.  You might put it this way: If you get a divorce and your ex-wife is furious with you, then you only get a furious and rich ex-wife if you think it will help to give her more money in the settlement. As you probably can hear, this is an example I have heard from a man, but it has made an impression anyway because it, in its’ simplicity, has a very important point. It is not more money in itself that ensures a better childhood, better childcare institutions, and better childcare workers and so on. It is the effort you make – and that effort may or may not be costly – but it is the effort that is essential. By describing “The Heckman-curve”, you have been the catalyst in a necessary debate concerning how we can improve the terms of children’s lives. You have also accepted the position as chair of TrygFondens Center for Child research’s Advisory Board at the University of Aarhus where you will be working with some of the best Danish researchers in the field. The purpose of the Advisory Board is to find solutions to improve the wellbeing and learning for Danish children with great inspiration from your work. Part of the scope is to upgrade the knowledge in Denmark so we know which efforts really work. Because – as it says on the Center for Child research’s webpage “Money, goodwill and an idea is not enough in and by itself. Here we test whether an effort works in practice by using rigorous impact evaluations.”

Now, that’s wonderful. Impact evaluations. Based on data. That hits a sore spot in Denmark. Denmark is one of the countries that has a very early effort when it comes to young children. 92 % of children enters a childcare facility at the age of 1, and by age 3 practically all children attend kindergarten. We have well-educated childcare workers in oppose to many other countries where children enter childcare facilities much later in life, and when they do it’s rarely with a high percentage of trained childcare workers. Denmark also stands out by having childcare that families actually can afford. The government and the municipalities spend a lot of money on these facilities, and the share that parents have to pay is based on the family’s income, which means that a low-income family pays less and sometimes doesn’t have to pay at all. We do this because we know, that an early effort in a child’s life is a good thing for the child, as well as it supports our “work-life-balance” which is one of the best in the world, where both parents have an opportunity to have a career and be parents at the same time.  Besides, it is becoming cool to make that priority in Denmark. Fathers insist on being equal parents for their children and not only providers of the family.

However, if we look at the statistics, we still haven’t cracked “The Heckman-curve” when it comes to content in the effort we make in improving children’s lives. Social background still carries too much weight for the children’s chances later in life. Too many still have the perception that daycare is all about fun and games while learning only takes place in schools – this perception has luckily been changing in the later years. Playing, learning and wellbeing is not separate spheres in children’s lives. It is and should be three components that comes together as one. It’s not enough to have well-educated childcare workers, if there has been a long tradition among childcare workers and teachers to be “a private practitioners” which in reality means that the individual works with his or her own efforts and ideas towards the children in their care. We still have a lot to learn in concerns of working with children in a systematic manner where you set goals for the children’s development and evaluate, give feedback, use other professionals for sparring and share knowledge and experiences across different fields of work. As a country, we have probably rested too long on the laurels of being among the world’s best - also when it comes to children’s welfare. It is not enough to celebrate that we have many different methods in our approach to working with children. We also have to take responsibility of which methods we use based on the knowledge that is accessible to us about what actually is proven to work.

We have a great word in Danish: To be “livsduelig”. A rough translation to English would be to be “Life-Virtuous”. I think it’s a wonderful phrase. What does it mean to be life-virtuous? It means that you have a set of skills that you can put to use to work in depth with a subject as well as putting those skills to use in relation with other people who have different skills than yourself. It means that you are curios to test, experiment, learn, become wiser and act on your experiences. It means that you thrive in group relations, because we more often do better work together than we do alone. Finally, it means that we want our children to be educated to be both good citizens and co-workers.

I believe that your “Heckman-curve” fundamentally builds on a vision that all children should have the opportunity to be “life-virtuous” in sustainable communities. As children and later as adults. Your research has already made its’ marks, and I have no doubt that it will continue to do so in the future. With those words and on behalf of the Foundation “A good start in Life”(Fonden – En god start i Livet), I would like to thank you for your work and congratulate you on receiving Årets Pris 2016, The Award of The Year 2016.