20 min talk on why early childhood is a great business opportunity to the students at University of Oxford, Mar 2019

1. Early Childhood Education
Why is this field a blue ocean opportunity?
Post talk, online version with notes
Tarun Varma, 1+1 MBA’16
MSc Child Development & Education

2. Early Insights™ 2
How did I land up working in early childhood development (ECD)
The importance of ECD
A snapshot - the world of ECD
India and ECD
Opportunity
What am I doing about it?
Q&A
Resources
What will we
talk about
today?

3. How did I
land up
learning
through play?
Early Insights™ 3
• Growing up in 14 towns and 9 schools left a major impression on me
• Five years of work in business across a few companies and nations made me meet people who
loved what they did and want to leave the world a better place (5% & bucket 1) and others
who swapped time for money (95% & bucket 2)
• We need more bucket 1 people
• I was told education was the training ground for bucket 1 people, especially primary school
• I became a primary school teacher, discovered early childhood was the real place to make a
difference
• To understand this better I studied early childhood and business

4. Why focus on ECD?
Early Insights™ 4
ECD provision enables
greater female
participation in the
workforce – which, more
than just boosting
economic growth, is an
argument to allow
choice for everyone to
fulfil their own potential
ECD provision helps
overcome child
poverty and
educational
disadvantage1,4
Econometric – high
quality programs save
significant money over
time
Social Science – high
quality programs
improve children’s
readiness for school
& life – executive
functions
Neuroscientific –
90% of brain volume
occurs before age 6
…the point of
greatest leverage for
social mobility is the
very earliest time in
life. What happens
between the ages of
zero and three….
Damian Hinds, Secy
of Education, United
Kingdom
2012 APPG Chair on
Social Mobility
• Great ECD is the biggest,
earliest equalizer we know.
• More than equality it helps
develop our potential.

5. Business speak
Early Insights™ 5
Millions of
potential
customers
Most in high
growth
markets
Low or light
regulation
High
willingness
to pay
High existing
and inchoate
demand
ECD is not only impactful. It is
also a phenomenal opportunity
for value creation

6. Snapshot - ECD across the world4
6Early Insights™
The world does not have great
ECD services across the board

7. ECD spend & alignment – headline data
Early Insights™ 7
ECD spend
as
%age of
GDP*
GDP*
(USD bn)
Population
**
(mn)
ECD
spend*
(USD bn)
Sweden
1.92% 469.48 9.99 9.01
Colombia 0.50% 666.8 49.07 3.33
Indonesia 0.07% 2848.46 264 1.99
*OECD 2018, **World Bank
- Nordic nations dominate the
rankings
- Many high income countries rank
poorly - Several low income
countries punch above their
weight5
Chile, Finland, New Zealand,
Norway, Scotland, Slovenia and
Sweden have integrated programs
The absolute amount of money
available for ECD is not small. The
challenge is more to deploy it
effetively with foresight.
We can learn from many rich and
middle income countries. And
the problem is not just a low and
middle income problem.

8. India – the
challenge
• India’s children are not ready
for school at age 51
• The Integrated Child
Development Scheme Covers
less than 50% children
between 0-6 years of age2
• India is at the bottom of the
EIU’s 2012 survey on Early
Childhood Education5
Early Insights™ 8
There are a lot of issues in India
at the same time, state / county
level ECD provision holds
opportunity

9. India – the opportunity
Early Insights™ 9
70.2 bn
India’s education budget
as a 2.6 tn USD economy*
49.92
bn
Additional funds if India started
spending 1.92% GDP on ECD
120 bn
GDP of Andhra Pradesh (49.6 mn people)
GDP growing at 11% p.a.
.6 bn
Additional funds if Andhra Pradesh
started spending 0.5% GDP on ECD
*Web Research incl. https://data.worldbank.org/
If India spent as much as Sweden
(GDP%) money would wreck the
system
However, a state, such as AP can
make a start. It is possible to
deploy 600 mn USD well

10. Business is one solution to a wicked problem
10Early Insights™
It is critical to take a systems view
to a wicked problem

11. Opportunity
Early Insights™ 11
Government
Redirect funding
Philanthropy
Catalyse & Innovate
Business
Help scale
Invest in redesigning existing
tools and measures for easier
use, data analytics and follow
up
Work with families and parents to spread awareness of choice re tools,
options for early child care and introduce to voucher schemes
Invest in existing organizations that offer high quality early adult-child
interactions
Publish and share results of
interventions with families
Analyze and open-source
demand and supply data for
all users and market players
Use outcomes data for next innovation steps
Build a case for how governments should redirect their spending.
1
3
4
5
Innovate close to the
problem – create an
ecosystem of online &
offline models
2
6
7
Non profits
Embed
Each player has a role and we can
work to together to lift the
system www.bit.ly/apbillion

12. Business
Early Insights™ 12
Online + Offline
Pause video, ship
product
Increase caregiver skill
Finding online solutions to offline
problems, introduce tactile
experiences to video for children
and increasing caregiver skill are
huge opportunities for business

13. What am I doing about it?
Early Insights™ 13

14. Thank you
@earlyinsights
www.earlyinsights.org

15. Sources
1. CECED. (2017). The India Early Childhood Education Impact Study. New Delhi, India. Retrieved from
http://ceced.net/IECEI Study Policy Brief July 2017.pdf
2. Das, S., & Kundu, P. (2014). Public Investment in Young Children in India. New Delhi, India. Retrieved from
http://www.cbgaindia.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Public-Investment-in-Young-Children-in-India-
final-paper-red.pdf
3. McCuaig, K., Bertrand, J., & Shanker, S. (2012). Trends in Early Education and Child Care. Toronto, ON.
Retrieved from
https://www.oise.utoronto.ca/atkinson/UserFiles/File/Publications/TrendsinEarlyEducationandChildCare_
Jul2012.pdf
4. Richter, L. M., Daelmans, B., Lombardi, J., Heymann, J., Boo, F. L., Behrman, J. R., … Darmstadt, G. L.
(2017). Investing in the foundation of sustainable development: pathways to scale up for early childhood
development. The Lancet, 389(10064), 103–118. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(16)31698-1
5. The Economist Intelligence Unit Limited. (2012). Starting well. Benchmarking early childhood education
across the world, 1--42. Retrieved from http://graphics.eiu.com/upload/eb/lienstartingwell.pdf
6. Starting Strong II: Early childhood education and care, OECD, 2006
7. World bank data - https://data.worldbank.org/
Early Insights™ 15

16. Resources
• Billion dollar bets on ECD
• Bridgespan report - https://www.bridgespan.org/insights/library/big-bets/billion-dollar-bets-
to-increase-early-childhood
• My critique and version - https://apolitical.co/solution_article/billion-dollar-early-childhood-
education/
• Great overview of early childhood:
• Country data, graphics and rankings - http://graphics.eiu.com/upload/eb/lienstartingwell.pdf
• A summary of the special report on Early Childhood, Jan 2019 -
https://earlyinsights.org/economist-special-report-on-childhood-jan-2019-8f0ec0debc9c
16Early Insights™