Return on Children (RoC)

The highest return investments for most societies are in children. This is because, those systems, who do not invest optimally in the next generation, suffer from both higher costs such as disease and crime as well as lower productivity in the long run. Although this is intuitively clear to most modern societies, it is unclear that they do anything about it.

In the US, states have different policies and practices on how they take care of their children. Many appear to focus on education but seem to neglect who cannot raise their hands to be educated. Granted, it is important to educate those who are in school better but it is equally important to assure that education is not a privilege afforded by the selected. In this regard, societal designs have stagnated – most focused on identifying problems after they have happened and sub-optimally attempting to mend it. The issue remains to be abuse and neglect of children by their parents, who do not seem to understand the deleterious effects of their actions on themselves and the society, more generally.

In a world driven by information and technology, access to education has become a necessary condition for survival. All through human history, advanced cultures have always provided the best possible choice set for children. In the modern world however, full of pride and ignorance, this idea seem to have been reversed. There are more children in today's world who have not been given the access to basic education and information and they are left behind for no fault of theirs.

As policy makers and the elite burn the midnight oil to find solutions for a better tomorrow, they should not forget what is obvious – without a coherent and consistent policy to provide all available information and possible education to those who are growing, they will fail miserably.