– By Rupsikha Baruah, Communications Associate, Rocket Learning
India loves a good debate on infrastructure. Highways, bullet trains, startups, smart cities – we argue passionately about where public money should go to build the future. But there is one investment that economists, the United Nations, and decades of hard data agree on, but still rarely makes it to national discourse.
It doesn’t involve a highway. It isn’t another app. It is a child under the age of six.
What the Evidence Says
Nobel Prize-winning economist James Heckman spent decades studying what happens when you invest in children early – and the repercussions when you don’t. His findings are one of the most cited on the subject: high-quality Early Childhood Programmes (birth-to-five) for children can deliver a 13% per year return on investment. His study shows that every $1 invested in quality early childhood development can return up to $17 in long-term social and economic gains – through better health, higher incomes, less crime and reduced dependency on welfare systems.
And the window for this investment? Birth to age five. The reason is biological as much as economic. By age five, 85% of total brain development is complete. In the first few years of life, millions of neural connections form every second. What children experience in this window — the quality of nutrition, care and stimulation they receive — shapes how they learn, think and function for decades to come. The window is short, but the returns are enormous.
The Gap India Cannot Afford to Ignore
And yet early childhood remains one of the most underfunded and undervalued stages of development globally. More than 350 million young children cannot access the early care and education they need. In India, with 158 million children under six, the gap between what is available and what is needed remains one of the most crucial issues.
However, the good news is that India has already started to address this gap and is among the countries recognising that investing in the earliest years is foundational to building more equitable, resilient and prosperous societies. In fact, India’s Integrated Child Development Services (started in 1975) — better known as the Anganwadi system — is one of the largest early childhood networks in the world, with over a million frontline workers reaching children and mothers in communities across the country. But coverage and quality remain uneven, and the system has not kept pace with what evidence now tells us children need in these earliest years.
Technology as a Bridge
At Rocket Learning, we operate at the intersection of government systems, simple technology, and behavioural science — trying to bridge the gap. As a trusted partner to the Ministry of Women and Child Development, Rocket Learning delivers quality early childhood education through three programmes.
The Smart Parent Programme reaches caregivers through daily WhatsApp-based content supporting children’s literacy, numeracy, motor skills and socio-emotional development at home. The Star Educator Programme supports Anganwadi educators with evidence-based lesson content delivered digitally, alongside in-person training that builds skills and confidence. And the Birth to Three programme focuses on the first thousand days of a child’s life, providing caregivers with simple weekly guidance on nutrition, health and play-based learning — all delivered in their own language, through a channel they already use.
All of this, at a cost so low it competes with a cup of coffee. For less than $2 per child per year, we are bringing quality early childhood education to 6 million children.
A Global Movement Taking Shape
The Heckman equation is now echoed by a global movement. In September 2024, the United Nations General Assembly, a coalition of the world’s leading organisations including UNICEF, UNESCO, Theirworld, the LEGO Foundation and others, unveiled what they called the world’s tiniest campaign document – the Minifesto. Small in size but bold in ambition, it is a part of the Act for Early Years campaign and demands:
1. Universal access to quality primary healthcare for young children
2. Free and compulsory preschool education as a right
3. Affordable, universal family support systems.
It aims to mobilise $1 billion in new pledges for the early years and is calling for the first-ever international finance summit on early childhood in 2027. Investment in the earliest years is one of the most direct routes available to governments for achieving the goals already at the top of their agendas: foundational learning, human capital development, workforce participation, gender equity and poverty reduction. We believe that. We are building towards it. And we believe India – with its scale, its Anganwadi network, and its 158 million children under six – has every reason to lead on it.