James Heckman is a genial American who is pleasant company but with a mind as sharp as a razor. This is, of course, what you would expect from someone with a distinguished academic career that includes the Nobel Prize for Economics.

The last and arguably the biggest fish of the seven mainly American economists who gave the Allander Series of lectures, Heckman was suitably controversial.

His lecture was billed as going to “slay some of the sacred cows of education”. It certainly laid down some pretty tough challenges to the way that education is currently structured in this country.

There are a lot of voices suggesting that early input is crucial. The strength of Heckman’s lecture is that it provides a lot of detailed evidence that backs up that case.

What has proved less palatable to the educational establishment in Scotland is his suggestion that some measures employed later in children’s lives are just not cost-effective.

The section of his lecture arguing about the limited effects of public money in reducing class sizes is particularly pointed and has already raised howls of rage.

Much of the reaction has stressed that it should not be an “either/or” situation. The critics argue that you should have investment at both or all ends of the age line of development of children.

This is an understandable reaction, but if politicians with limited budgets are faced with an either/or choice, Heckman’s analysis shows a pretty clear pointer to where the investment should be made.

He argues early interventions mean that later ones have much more effect: “Recent research has demonstrated the importance of the early years in creating the abilities and motivations that affect learning and foster productivity.”

It is not a static, one-off process. “Learning begets learning,” as he puts it.

Without those early interventions are the later ones a poor use of limited public money? It is a stark and controversial question that will be uncomfortable for more than a few in Scotland, but one that is very definitely worth asking.

Another issue he highlights is that “families are just as important as, if not more important than, schools in producing human capital”.

This raises another set of questions about the state’s approach to families. Again this will be regarded as controversial but again it is worth looking at.

Politicians pondering the recent memory of John Major’s back-to-basics campaign may well want to run a mile from even joining this debate.

Again, Heckman doesn’t so much tiptoe as march with heavy boots into the issue of who pays for education. “Persons who benefit from education should pay for it,” he states baldly at one point in the full text of the lecture.

It is a stance that casts the government’s approach to tuition fees into sharp relief.

Then, apparently in case there is anyone in education whose eyebrows have not already shot through the top of their head, the Nobel Prize winner makes a pointed specific suggestion: “Scotland should seriously consider devising a more selective tuition policy by charging those who benefit most and providing relief for the small minority of bright, but poor children.”

This analysis, which challenges some of the basic foundations of policy in the UK, and particularly in Scotland, is a welcome contribution to the debate.

Sticking with “the way we have always done things” is not going to cut it in terms of improving Scotland’s economic performance.

But are Heckman’s prescriptions the right ones?

Certainly a very valuable comment from Heckman is that the available data on Scotland’s economy is very limited. We can hope that at the very least something will be done about that following this series of lectures.

The issues raised by him, his co-author Dimitriy Masterov, and those of the other six Allander lecturers, will be discussed in a conference being held on June 28 that will “wrap up” the series.

Some of the lectures have been better than others; some have got to grips with Scotland better than others, but together they have made a singular contribution to the debate about Scotland’s economic future.

The Sunday Herald has tried to play its part as a newspaper by making extracts of the lectures more widely available and thus furthering the debate.

But the Fraser of Allander Institute, and in particular visiting professor Wendy Alexander, should be praised for conceiving and organising the lectures and sparking the debate.

We can only hope that the ideas put forward by fine economic minds will lead to policy differences that will have a positive effect on the lives and prosperity of the people of Scotland.

09 May 2004