‘If you want to understand the future of a country, do not start in its universities. Start in its kindergartens, creches and nurseries. Because by the age of 5, the story is already being written.’ The results from the second cycle of the OECD’s Early Learning and Child Well-being Study (IELS 2025) have just been released. In this article, we share more about the focus and innovative assessment design of IELS, and an overview of the latest international findings.
Getting off to a strong start in the early years is the foundation for future learning, wellbeing and equity, so understanding how children are faring in this important stage can help improve their experiences and lift outcomes.
Focusing on 5-year-olds, the International Early Learning and Child Well‑being Study (IELS) is the OECD’s first international comparative study of early childhood learning and development. The latest results (OECD, 2026) have just been released.
Introducing the report, OECD Director of Education and Skills Andreas Schleicher writes: ‘If you want to understand the future of a country, do not start in its universities. Start in its kindergartens, creches and nurseries. Because by the age of 5, the story is already being written. Early childhood development is not just a warm-up act for education; it is the foundation. It shapes whether a child will thrive in school, feel confident in life, and ultimately find their place in society.’
IELS 2025 participation and focus
The first cycle of IELS was in 2018. More than 23,000 children participated in 2025 from 8 jurisdictions featured in report: Azerbaijan (Baku and Sumgait), Brazil (Ceará, Pará and São Paulo), England, Belgium (the Flemish Community), Korea, Malta, the Netherlands and the United Arab Emirates.
Most international assessments focus on students who have been at school for 4 years or more, but IELS participants were registered in an early childhood education and care (ECEC) centre or at the very start of school. There was a difference in settings across jurisdictions (for example, children in England were attending primary schools, in Korea they were attending ECEC, and in Malta it was a mix of both) but they were all from the same age group.
Their development was measured across 10 domains, grouped into 3 dimensions that provide a holistic picture of early learning beyond simply academic outcomes – foundational learning, executive function, and social-emotional skills. ‘What makes IELS 2025 so powerful is that it does not just look at one piece of the puzzle,’ Schleicher explains. ‘It brings together direct assessments of the cognitive, social and emotional foundations of children with insights from parents and teachers.
‘It looks across multiple domains of development at once. In doing so, it gives us something we have long been missing: a clear and comparable picture of how children are really doing at the very start of their learning journeys.’
There are 10 domains measured across the 3 dimensions:
- Foundational learning: emergent literacy, emergent numeracy
- Executive function: inhibition, working memory, mental flexibility
- Social and emotional development: emotion identification, emotional attribution, trust, pro-social behaviour, non-disruptive behaviour. (OECD, 2026)
Together, they are strong predictors of later educational and wellbeing outcomes. Executive function, for example, is one of the most practical foundations for learning. The skills measured here help children follow instructions, manage impulses and resist temptation, adapt to new situations, and stay with a task when it gets tricky.
Innovative assessment design
IELS was delivered by an international consortium under OECD leadership, with the Australian Council for Educational Research (ACER) serving as lead contractor.
‘Measuring learning in the early years requires approaches that are both responsive to children and technically robust,’ says Dan Cloney, Lead Researcher for IELS at ACER.
‘ACER led the development of the assessment framework, instruments and delivery platform and undertook the psychometric modelling that underpin the study. This work reflects ACER’s deep expertise in early childhood assessment and international large‑scale assessments.’
The study forms part of ACER’s broader leadership in early childhood assessment and research. It has played a central role in advancing how early learning and development can be measured, including through national initiatives such as the Preschool Outcomes Measure (POM) in Australia and contributions to global work on education access and equity.
IELS requires a design that’s accessible, engaging and appropriate for children. Dr Cloney explains children took part in activities delivered on a tablet and administered one‑to‑one by trained assessors. The game-like assessment tasks are short, story‑based and interactive, and supported by visual and audio cues – they don’t require reading skills and are designed to be engaging and well targeted at children’s capabilities.
The study also collects questionnaire data from educators and teachers, and parents and families. This information provides both evidence about children’s social and emotional skills, but also important contextual information about where children live and access ECEC programs and school.
Overview of 2025 findings
IELS 2025 data show that different developmental pathways are already evident by the age of 5, reflecting the influence of early experiences and environments.
• Girls demonstrate stronger outcomes than boys across all 3 domains. ‘The differences are more pronounced in social and emotional development and less salient in foundational learning,’ the report reads. ‘On average across jurisdictions, girls score between 20 and 31 points higher than boys in the domains of emotion identification, emotional attribution, pro-social behaviour and non-disruptive behaviour. Emergent numeracy is the domain where girls’ and boys’ outcomes are most similar. In executive function, differences exist in inhibition and mental flexibility.’
• Differences linked to socio economic circumstances are also visible early, especially in foundational skills. ‘Socio-economically advantaged children score on average between 60 and 70 points higher than their less advantaged peers in emergent literacy and emergent numeracy. Socio-economic gaps are smaller in executive function and social and emotional development but remain consistent across all domains.’
• Differences associated with immigration background or home language are comparatively small and often diminish once broader circumstances are taken into account, reinforcing the strengths children bring with them.
• What happens at home matters. Rich home learning environments and active family engagement with early learning settings are consistently associated with stronger learning and wellbeing outcomes. ‘Children whose parents spend more time engaging with them in educational activities have stronger outcomes in emergent literacy, emergent numeracy, and in some social and emotional development domains, on average. Supporting disadvantaged families in providing rich home learning environments can promote better outcomes and reduce inequalities.’
• While earlier and more intensive participation in ECEC supports early literacy and numeracy, participation alone is not sufficient to ensure equitable outcomes, pointing to the importance of sustained attention to access to high quality ECEC programs and strong partnerships with families. ‘Children whose parents are strongly involved in their early education settings at age 5 have higher scores than peers with less involved parents in many domains, particularly in social and emotional development. … Policies that strengthen family-school connectedness in the early years could benefit all children.’
• Questionnaire data show the perceptions of parents and educators about the children’s ‘cognitive and motor skills, socio-emotional skills and global skills’ generally reflect the same socio-demographic gaps emerging in the assessments. ‘Both parents and teachers perceive girls as having stronger skills than boys, and socio-economically advantaged children as having stronger skills than their less advantaged peers.’
References
OECD. (2026). Building Strong Foundations for Life: Results from the 2025 Early Learning and Child Well-being Study. OECD Publishing. https://doi.org/10.1787/02bf8efe-en.
