Giving Compass' Take:

• Devex discusses the lack of attention to pre-primary education when it comes to development funds and urges donors to refocus their efforts.

• A study in Mozambique showed that kids in preschool were 24 percent more likely to continue on to primary school. More investment in early childhood ed could have a huge impact. Will dev agencies follow through?

• In case you need to see more data on the importance of pre-K, be sure to give this a read.

Just 1 percent of early childhood development funding is spent on education, according to a report published Wednesday. The report calls on donors to dedicate at least 10 percent of their education budgets to schooling for children aged under 5.

While aid for early childhood development programs to improve health, nutrition, and education for pre-primary children has increased significantly in recent years — from $1.3 billion in 2002 to $6.8 billion in 2016 — just 1 percent of that money is spent on preschool education programs, according to the report from children’s charity Theirworld.

“This is a major blind spot in development spending and efforts to tackle inequality,” Theirworld Campaigns and Communications Director Ben Hewitt said. “Most often, children missing out on preschool are the poorest and most marginalized. It is an unfair disadvantage from the start.”

Neuroscienctists say a child’s brain experiences its fastest growth and is most “malleable” between the prenatal period and age 3, meaning that proper cognitive and non-cognitive stimulation needs to happen early.

The World Bank described early childhood development as “the smartest investment a country can make in its future” in its recent World Development Report on education.

Read the full article about the lack of pre-primary education spending in aid by Sophie Edwards at Devex International Development