Yet another government scheme of interfering in areas where they really have no idea has collapse with reports of £3bn wasted. The £3 billion series of policies designed to boost the achievements of pre-school children has made absolutely no difference according to a University of Durham study. The policies included early childhood curriculum, the Sure Start programme, free nursery education for all three-year-olds and the Every Child Matters initiative. All policies that sound good and appear to be set out for the right reasons, but if just a little thought had been taken rather than just trying to sound good, it would have been apparent that these schemes were a waste of money and time. On a grand scale.
This study wasn’t just a small sample either. No clear progress was detected among the 35,000 children from a range of backgrounds that were studied over the course of the six-year study. Why does the government insist on spending such vast sums of money on these initiatives before they have even made it out of the early testing stages? Surely if they had just held a trial on a few schools they would have realised this was a failed scheme and saved literally billions of pounds. Instead they steamed ahead as usual and the rest of us are left to pick up the tab.