Policy Research Working Paper 9549 Political Prioritization of Early Childhood Education in Low- and Middle-Income Countries Michelle J. Neuman Shawn Powers Education Global Practice February 2021 Policy Research Working Paper 9549 Abstract Despite a growing evidence base and global consensus on political economy conditions to support sustained com- the importance of early childhood education, it remains mitment are only partially present. National policymakers under-resourced and comparatively neglected as a policy have responded to global efforts to advance early childhood issue. This paper seeks to understand which factors facili- development, and ideas about the benefits of early child- tate or impede efforts to make early childhood education hood education have gained significant traction. With few a political priority in low- and middle-income countries, exceptions, however, civil society mobilization around early applying a framework used primarily in global public health. childhood education is relatively weak, and focusing events It draws on a comparative analysis of four countries: Ethi- and prominent champions for early childhood education opia, Liberia, Pakistan (Punjab Province), and Tanzania. are uncommon. Taken together, these factors are consistent Although each of these countries has undertaken recent, with a strong rhetorical commitment to early learning but concrete efforts to scale early childhood education, the a lack of sustained follow-through and resource provision. This paper is a product of the Education Global Practice. It is part of a larger effort by the World Bank to provide open access to its research and make a contribution to development policy discussions around the world. Policy Research Working Papers are also posted on the Web at http://www.worldbank.org/prwp. The authors may be contacted at spowers1@worldbank.org. The Policy Research Working Paper Series disseminates the findings of work in progress to encourage the exchange of ideas about development issues. An objective of the series is to get the findings out quickly, even if the presentations are less than fully polished. The papers carry the names of the authors and should be cited accordingly. The findings, interpretations, and conclusions expressed in this paper are entirely those of the authors. They do not necessarily represent the views of the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development/World Bank and its affiliated organizations, or those of the Executive Directors of the World Bank or the governments they represent. Produced by the Research Support Team Political Prioritization of Early Childhood Education in Low- and Middle-Income Countries Michelle J. Neuman, Results for Development and University of Pennsylvania Shawn Powers, World Bank Key words: Political economy, early learning, ECE, ECD, Ethiopia, Liberia, Tanzania, Pakistan JEL Codes: P16, H52, I25, I28 The authors gratefully acknowledge the collaboration of ELP Systems Research teams on whose fieldwork this paper was based, as well as the key informants who contributed time, information, and insights. The paper greatly benefited from generous advice and consultation from Luis Crouch. Denise Bonsu and Aizhan Kul- Mukhammed provided excellent research assistance. Helpful comments were provided by Mark Roland, Karen Zamboni, and Hannah Chisambi. Any remaining errors are the responsibility of the authors. Funding from the UK Foreign, Commonwealth, and Development Office (FCDO) is gratefully acknowledged. 1. Introduction Young children’s experiences in the first five years of life are critical for their well-being and provide the foundation for lifelong learning. Inequalities in early childhood development (ECD) begin early and tend to persist over time (Fernald et al., 2012). Young children who participate in quality early childhood education (ECE), preschool, or pre-primary education 1 are more likely to begin primary school on time, less likely to drop out, and more likely to complete more years of schooling (Fernald et al., 2014; World Bank, 2018). By reducing repetition rates and boosting learning outcomes in primary schooling, investments in early learning have the potential to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of education systems (Crouch et al., 2020; Gove et al., 2018; Naudeau et al., 2011). These services also provide essential child care to support working parents (Sammans et al., 2017). Despite the growing evidence from low- and middle-income countries (LMICs), and global and national commitments to support it, ECE remains a neglected policy issue (Shawar & Shiffman, 2017) that has yet to attract the resources needed to expand access and deliver quality services for all young children (UNICEF, 2019). Globally, early learning features prominently in the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), especially Target 4.2: “by 2030 all nations will provide access to quality early childhood development, care and pre-primary education so that all girls and boys are well prepared when they enter primary education” (United Nations, 2015, p. 19). Leaders of UNICEF, WHO, the World Bank, international NGOs, and civil society groups have expressed rhetorical commitment to ECD as a driver of human capital (e.g., TheirWorld, 2017; Chan et al., 2017). 2 Around the world, enrollments in pre-primary education have expanded, and more than half of all young children globally attend ECE programs before starting primary school. While government policy and provision vary across countries, ECE is increasingly integrated into basic education; at least one year of pre-primary education is compulsory in about 50 countries. However, with less than a decade remaining to reach the SDGs, it is apparent that the world is not on track. UNICEF (2019) estimates that at the current rate of progress, more than half of low- and lower-middle-income countries will not achieve universal pre-primary education by 2030. 1 We use “early childhood education (ECE)” and “preschool” interchangeably for formal and non-formal education prior to the start of primary school. These terms may cover different age groups (e.g., 3-5, 4-6, etc.) and forms of provision (schools, community-based, etc.) in different countries. “Pre-primary education” is a form of ECE, typically focused on the year or two prior to school entry. “Early learning” encompasses these forms of provision as well as responsive caregiving for younger children and sometimes the early grades of basic education. We refer to “early childhood development (ECD)” to cover a broader set of education, health, nutrition, child and social protection services/supports from the prenatal period to about age 8. 2 As an example of the high-level global policy dialogue on this topic, seven ministers of finance/economy and a prime minister participated in a panel “Human Capital Summit: Investing in the Early Years for Growth and Productivity” at the World Bank Spring Meetings in 2016 (see https://live.worldbank.org/human-capital-summit). 2 While many governments have set ambitious goals for scaling early learning programs, in line with these global norms, uneven implementation and insufficient investment are persistent challenges (Yoshikawa et al., 2018; Neuman & Okeng’o, 2019). In low-income countries, only about 20 percent of children are enrolled in pre-primary education compared to more than 80 percent in high-income countries (UNICEF, 2019). Moreover, inequities within countries keep disadvantaged children who would benefit most from ECE from accessing these opportunities. Data from 64 countries show that children from low-income households are seven times less likely to participate in early childhood education than those from higher- income households (UNICEF, 2019). In many countries where rapid expansion of ECE has occurred, the quality of services remains poor. Poor infrastructure, limited play and learning materials, and lack of teacher training and support are among the barriers to quality early learning environments with meaningful adult-child interactions critical to early development and learning (Mitter & Putcha, 2017; Neuman et al., 2015; Raikes et al., 2019b). Evidence from some countries, such as Ghana, indicates a mismatch between parent expectations of ECE and what research suggests is quality provision (Wolf & Peele, 2020). Taken together, limited access to and poor quality of early learning from preschool through primary school in about 40 LMICs are associated with a range of student achievement and education system efficiency issues such as over enrollment and high repetition in the early grades and persistently low levels of school completion (Crouch et al., 2020). Current financing from governments and donors is inadequate to ensure access and quality. In low- income countries, governments allocate only about 3 percent of their education budgets to ECE compared to 9 percent in high-income countries (Zubairi & Rose, 2019). Few education donors prioritize ECE, relative to other levels of education, and aid to the pre-primary sector has declined since 2015. Current spending on pre-primary education by governments and donors represents approximately 11 percent of the resources needed annually by low-income countries to reach Target 4.2 by 2030. Estimates suggest that spending on one year of quality pre-primary education 3 alone must increase by six times annually (UNESCO GEM, 2015). The COVID-19 pandemic and economic downturn are expected to constrain donor and domestic financing for education (Al-Samarrai et al., 2020) and threaten recent advances toward scaling early learning opportunities (Kim & Rose, 2020; Yoshikawa et al., 2020). In this context, it is timely to consider what is needed to increase political attention and resources for ECE, a traditionally neglected policy issue. This paper focuses on the political economy 4 of scaling 3 The ECD field lacks a universally-agreed definition of quality (see Raikes et al., 2019 for a review). The Global Education Monitoring (GEM) Report model takes into account increased costs of improving “quality” pre-primary education by adjusting structural aspects (e.g., lower pupil-teacher ratios) as countries expand access to meet the SDG Target 4.2. 4 Political economy analysis explores relationships among individuals, institutions, the market, and the state, as well as the specific policy outcomes of these relationships (Hudson & Leftwich, 2014; McGregor et al., 2020; Verger et al., 2016). 3 quality ECE in LMICs through a comparative analysis of four cases: Ethiopia, Liberia, Pakistan (Punjab Province), and Tanzania. Specifically, we seek to better understand which factors facilitate or impede efforts in these countries to make ECE a political priority, which Shiffman and Smith (2007) define as “the degree to which international and national political leaders actively give attention to an issue, and back up that attention with the provision of financial, technical, and human resources that are commensurate with the severity of the issue” (p. 1370). Existing studies on scaling ECE in low-resource contexts accord more attention to the technical and institutional dimensions than to the political ones (see Section 2). Recent scholarship on the political economy of education reform in LMICs (Bruns et al., 2019; Hickey & Hossain, 2019; Kingdon et al., 2014; Levy et al., 2018) focuses on primary and secondary education rather than the early years. While ECE is influenced by these broader education reforms, we argue that the politics of the sub-sector are unique. Our analyses help fill these knowledge gaps. In the next section, we review the existing international literature on early learning in LMICs with a focus on the enablers and barriers to scaling interventions and programs. We draw on country case studies of ECE policy development in LMICs to identify common themes and lessons at key stages of the policy process, including agenda setting, policy formulation, and policy implementation. After presenting the research methods and country case selection for our study, we adapt and apply an existing analytical framework to compare the factors that have encouraged or hindered national political prioritization of ECE across our focus countries/region. In the concluding section, we discuss the implications of our analysis for national policymakers, international organizations, and other stakeholders interested in promoting the rapid scaling of quality ECE. 2. Lessons from previous research and policy experience on scaling early learning in LMICs Scaling early learning involves both the expansion of services from small-scale pilot initiatives to large- scale efforts that reach a broader population (“smaller to bigger”) and the improvement of systems that are already at scale (“bigger to better”) (Yoshikawa et al., 2018). 5 Our analysis of existing reviews (e.g., Richter et al., 2017; Perez-Escamilla et al., 2017; Roland et al., 2016; Vargas-Baron, 2009) and country case studies highlights several factors that have enabled early learning (and ECD more generally) to attract political attention and resources: high-level political champions; support from international actors; political transitions creating tipping points; research and data on the status of young children; strong lead agency or “institutional anchor;” mainstreaming ECE in national education policy planning; and civil 5 Although a comprehensive review of the literature on scaling development initiatives goes beyond the scope of this paper, relevant frameworks include Cooley & Linn (2014), Perlman Robinson & Winthrop (2016), and Zamboni et al. (2019). 4 society and non-state engagement. We also discuss barriers to the enactment and implementation of reforms across different LMICs. High-level political champions in countries have positioned early learning on national policy agendas in countries such as Brazil (Lowenson et al., 2019), Chile (Milman et al., 2018), Jordan (Al-Hassan, 2018), and Kenya (Okengo, 2011). Under the leadership of former President Bachelet, a pediatrician, in 2006, the government launched Chile Crece Contigo (ChCC), a multi-sectoral effort to address inequality in child development outcomes and support young children and families through universal and targeted services. ChCC provides roughly 60 percent of households with free access to nurseries and preschools, and guaranteed essential prenatal and child health services to families across Chile (CPI, 2016). A coordinating ministry, dedicated budget line, and enacting legislation have sustained ChCC over time (Milman et al., 2018). In addition to domestic leadership, international actors (international agencies, NGOs, and foundations) have played an important agenda-setting role by disseminating global goals and evidence, providing technical guidance and funding to encourage national governments to enact ECE reforms (Rao & Kaul, 2017; Okengo, 2011; Richter et al., 2017; Vargas-Baron, 2009). Political transitions and related tipping points in countries such as Chile (Milman et al., 2018), Peru (Cueto, 2011), and South Africa (Biersteker, 2010) have created policy windows - opportunities for advancing early learning on the policy agenda. In South Africa, political upheaval at the end of Apartheid marked a significant turning point for ECD. The government’s commitment to promoting social justice and reducing educational inequalities paved the way for the expansion of ECD services, including the creation of Grade R, which now reaches more than 75 percent of five-year-olds (Richter & Samuels, 2017; Perez-Escamilla, 2017). In some countries, research and data on the status of young children – particularly on issues pertaining to equity and child rights – have helped influence policymakers to support ECD (Piper et al., 2018; Rao & Kaul, 2017; Vargas-Baron, 2009). For example, Kenya’s Tayari School Readiness Program was implemented in 2016 in response, in part, to existing research linking ECE programs to higher levels of academic achievement during later years of schooling (Piper et. al., 2018). Given the multi-sectoral nature of ECD, different priorities (e.g., the nutrition sector focuses on the first 1,000 days of life to reduce stunting, the education sector focuses on preschoolers) 6 can make it difficult for proponents to identify common solutions and secure funding (Richter et al., 2017; Results for 6 In response to this fragmentation, the Nurturing Care Framework, launched in 2018, provides an overview of the roles that various sectors play in ensuring optimal health and development in the early years (WHO et al. 2018). 5 Development, 2015; Shawar & Shiffman, 2017; Yoshikawa et al., 2018). Support from a strong lead agency or “institutional anchor” has helped respond to the need for coordinated leadership and governance (Cueto, 2011; Milman et al., 2018; Naudeau et al., 2011; Vargas-Baron, 2013). These institutional arrangements can take different forms. For example, Jamaica’s Early Childhood Commission within the Ministry of Education, Youth, and Sports has an inter-agency mechanism which brings together diverse stakeholders to advance a common ECD agenda (Holland & Evans, 2010; Naudeau et al., 2011). At the policy formulation stage, mainstreaming ECE in national education policy planning has attracted multi-donor partnerships and financing for the sub-sector in Jordan (Al-Hassan, 2018), Lao PDR, Mali, Mongolia, and Nepal (UNICEF, 2019). In Lao PDR, for example, the integration of a strong ECE component within its Education Sector Development Plan helped leverage funding from the EFA-Fast Track Initiative (now the Global Partnership for Education) for improving preschool infrastructure, providing learning and teaching materials, and training teachers. The Gross Enrollment Rate (GER) increased sharply from about 5 percent in 2000 to 43 percent in 2017 (UNICEF, 2019). Legislation making pre-primary compulsory and free has led to rapid increases in access in countries including Ghana (Kamran, 2019), Peru (Clark et al., 2015), and Kazakhstan (UNESCO, 2007). Through the Better Early Learning and Development at Scale (BELDS) initiative, Ministries of Education and other stakeholders in four countries (Ghana, Lesotho, São Tomé and Príncipe, and Kyrgyz Republic) are working together to analyze, plan, and cost ECE policies and programs in order to strengthen the ECE sub-sector within education sector planning and implementation (Boateng, 2020; Costa, 2020; Dzhusupbekova, 2020; Rapapa, 2019). Despite the importance of policy and legal frameworks, the ECE sub-sector remains under-funded within national budgets, which not only constrains efforts to expand access equitably, but also affects the delivery of quality services (Li et al., 2016; Piper et al., 2015; Richter et al., 2017, UNICEF, 2019). In particular, insufficient resources for strengthening and supporting the workforce – inadequate training and professional development, low remuneration, poor working conditions – impede the supply and quality of ECE (ILO, 2012; Josephson et al., 2017; Rao & Kaul, 2017; Shaeffer, 2015, Richter & Samuels, 2017). A few exceptional cases, such as Bulgaria, Ecuador, and Mongolia, show that it is possible to generate the political will to dedicate a significant portion - more than 20 percent - of the education budget toward expanding access to quality pre-primary education (UNICEF, 2019). 6 Civil society and non-state engagement, including for-profit and non-profit actors, have been important in expanding early learning in the context of low political will and scarce government resources. As governments become more engaged in the sub-sector, non-state actors are important partners both in advocating for systems-level changes and providing services (UNICEF, 2019). Two cases demonstrate the role of civil society in ECE advocacy and provision. In Turkey, a strong civil society advocacy movement mounted a national campaign that raised public awareness around the importance of ECE and persuaded the government to make preschool compulsory; preschool enrollment more than doubled from 19 percent in 2005 to 67 percent in 2012 (Results for Development, 2015). In Bangladesh, the 2010 National Education Policy defined the roles of government and civil society in scaling up a one-year pre- primary program, decentralizing decision-making and planning to the grassroots level. With continuous civil society engagement, pre-primary enrollment nearly tripled between 2005 and 2013 (UNICEF, 2019). Although diverse delivery models can help expand ECE quickly, disparities in quality between formal and non-formal preschool can emerge, as in Indonesia (UNESCO, 2007) and Peru (Cueto, 2011). Moreover, the involvement of diverse actors can lead to fragmentation and complicate the implementation process (Britto et al., 2014; Perez-Escamilla et al., 2017). Variations in local implementation capacity and resources have also generated competition between ECD and other priorities (Yoshikawa et al, 2018; Rao & Kaul, 2017; Shawar & Shiffman, 2017; Perez-Escamilla et al., 2017). In India, for example, the decentralization of the Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS) and the devolution of funding to the state level have forced the program to compete with other priorities within each state, leading to variation in policy attention and financial support across the country (Rao & Kaul, 2017). The country examples in this section illustrate the importance of political leadership, legal and policy frameworks, multi-stakeholder governance and public-private partnerships, and working within existing planning and financing processes to scale ECE. Insufficient financial and human resources and fragmentation of various kinds emerge as common challenges. Previous research tells us more about the expansion of interventions (“smaller to bigger”) than systems-building (“bigger to better”). Few studies consider how workforce, governance, financing, monitoring and quality assurance fit together (Powers & Paulsell, forthcoming). Overall, there is insufficient attention to the political-economic drivers – actors, ideas, institutions, and resources – and processes that facilitate or constrain efforts to establish and deliver on national commitments to scaling early learning. Our paper contributes to the literature by investigating these political economy factors more comprehensively and systematically. 7 3. Methods and approach 3.1. Research questions In light of these lingering issues, this paper explores what political economy factors have contributed to, or detracted from, the rapid scaling of access to ECE services in LMICs. We seek to answer the following research questions: To what extent is ECE on the national/sub-national policy agenda? What factors facilitate or obstruct political priority for ECE? How does the level of political support encourage or prevent the mobilization of adequate financial, human and technical resources to reach countries’ access and quality goals? What lessons can be drawn from these experiences for policymakers, international organizations, and other stakeholders interested in the rapid scaling of quality ECE? To answer our research questions, we conducted a qualitative comparative policy analysis drawing primarily on document research and key informant interviews. We adapted and applied a framework used primarily in global public health (Shiffman, 2007; Shiffman & Smith, 2007) to analyze the factors that have been influential in shaping the political prioritization of ECE in four cases. 3.2. Country case selection Our country set includes four of the countries/regions participating in the World Bank Early Learning Partnership (ELP) Systems Research program: Ethiopia, Liberia, the province of Punjab in Pakistan, and Tanzania. With financial support from the UK government, the ELP Systems Research program aims: (1) to provide policymakers with actionable information to help guide the delivery of quality, equitable early learning at scale; and (2) to build the international evidence base in the emerging field of systems research in ECE. In 2017-18, a comprehensive early learning system diagnostic was commissioned in each country/region. Each report contains a combination of: a situation analysis of policy developments, enrollment trends, and key challenges; a study of early learning environments and child outcomes using tools developed by the Measuring Early Learning Quality and Outcomes (MELQO) initiative (Raikes et al., 2019); a cost analysis; an actor mapping; and an analysis of non-state provision. The ELP Systems Research focus countries were selected according to the following criteria: policymaker receptivity to evidence, plans for scaling early learning services (including through World Bank financing), and presence of in-country research capacity. Therefore, the countries analyzed in this paper represent, a priori, at least some conditions favorable for prioritization of early learning among LMICs. A fifth ELP focus country, Jamaica, was excluded from this analysis because of its significantly different place on the critical path of early learning services. In Yoshikawa et al.’s (2018), terminology it has transitioned to “bigger to better” while the other countries are still in the “smaller to bigger” stage. 8 3.3. Data sources Guided by qualitative case study methodology, we collected and analyzed multiple types of data to inform the study, triangulate across sources and minimize bias, and establish mechanisms of change causality (Yin, 2003). Data included: government reports and policy documents; international agency and NGO reports; published research; press articles; and key informant interviews. We conducted in-depth reviews of the four ELP Systems Research diagnostic reports to pull out data relevant to our research questions and complemented this secondary analysis with desk reviews of recent policy documents (e.g., education sector plans, ECE policies), research reports, and press articles related to the expansion of ECE over the past decade. From October 2019 to April 2020, we carried out key informant interviews by phone with researchers, program managers, and World Bank staff. Respondents included the four ELP Systems Research Country Research Teams and other experts (NGO leaders, development partners, and researchers) engaged with ECE in the focus countries, who were identified through snowball sampling and document review. The ELP Systems Research diagnostic reports synthesize hundreds of interviews with government officials at the national and sub-national levels as well as with representatives of civil society and other stakeholders. Rather than duplicate this data collection, the purpose of the semi- structured interviews conducted for this paper was to fill in data gaps, collect information on recent policy developments, probe emerging issues, and identify sources to complete our analyses. The themes covered included: history of ECE expansion within the education system, agenda setting and policy design, implementation and pathways to scale, and influence of key stakeholders. The research team members took detailed notes during the interviews, which each lasted about 1 hour. The key informants and representatives of the ELP Systems Research Country Teams reviewed draft versions of the paper to check for factual accuracy and provide feedback on our initial interpretations and emergent findings. We revised the manuscript balancing this feedback with the need for consistent interpretation across countries. 3.4. Analytical framework for assessing political prioritization To analyze the determinants of political priority for early learning (i.e., the allocation of policy attention and resources to address the issue), we adapted an analytical framework developed for global health initiatives by Shiffman and Smith (2007) and applied it to the four case countries/regions. The framework 9 highlights five “categories” that shape political priority for a particular policy issue: (1) transnational influence; (2) actor power; (3) ideas; (4) political contexts; and (5) issue characteristics: 7 ● Transnational influence includes the role of international agencies in promoting the issue by promoting global norms and offering technical and financial resources to governments. ● Actor power refers to the strength of individuals and organizations engaged with the issue, notably the presence of national political champions, guiding institutions, strong and cohesive policy communities, and civil society mobilization. ● Ideas include how actors understand how the problem is defined, caused, and solved and how they frame the issue to others in order to garner attention to it. ● Political contexts refer to the environments in which key actors operate - major political changes, focusing events, and competing policy priorities. ● Issue characteristics describe the features of the problem such as availability of indicators on the severity of the issue and cost-effective interventions that can be implemented at scale. The presence of several “factors” or indicators in every category influences the degree to which an issue appears on policy agendas and attracts political support (Shiffman & Smith, 2007). This analytical framework, which emerged from studies of efforts to reduce maternal mortality globally and in specific countries, provides guidance on how to generate political priority for health causes in low- resource contexts. It has been applied to other pressing but under addressed global health issues including newborn mortality (Smith, Shiffman, & Kazembe, 2014), mental health (Tomlinson & Lund, 2012) and malnutrition (Pelletier et al., 2012). These studies have shown that political priority is an important step toward effective policy responses to previously neglected public health problems. We identified two previous applications of the framework to ECD. One study focusing on generating global priority to ECD (Shawar & Shiffman, 2017) highlights two challenges for the field: developing internal consensus around the definition of the problem and solutions (framing) and building effective institutions to achieve common goals (governance). A second paper (Pelletier & Neuman, 2014) discusses how this agenda- setting framework and indicators can be used alongside other tools (e.g., SABER-ECD) to strengthen multisectoral, system-wide policy environments for ECD. We are not aware of any studies applying this 7Shiffman (2007) identifies three categories related to national prioritization (transnational influence, domestic advocacy, contexts) and Shiffman and Smith (2007) identify four categories related to global prioritization (actor power, ideas, political contexts, issue characteristics). Given that there is some overlap across the seven categories, we focus on these five. 10 framework to early childhood education or to policy agenda setting for early childhood issues at the national level. After reviewing prior studies that have used the framework to analyze policy agenda setting at the global or national level, we made minor adaptations to the descriptions of 13 “factors” for determining political prioritization to make them more relevant to the issue of ECE. We also developed our own rubric to provide a consistent approach to determining the degree to which each factor is present and influential in each of the four case cases. We used the rubric to classify the qualitative data related to each factor as “high”, “medium”, or “low.” We hypothesize that higher ratings are likely to accelerate political prioritization, whereas low ratings are likely to hold it back. Given each country’s unique political, institutional, and cultural context, we would expect there to be multiple paths to achieving political prioritization, with higher ratings in some categories than others. We present our analysis using the main categories in the framework - transnational influence, actor power, ideas, political contexts, and issue characteristics - to help explain which factors facilitated or constrained political priority for scaling early learning in each of the focus countries and to identify cross-country patterns and themes. Shiffman and Smith (2007) acknowledge that, “It is difficult to control for confounding variables of influence and in assessment of the relative causal weight of factors identified as shaping political priority” (p. 1373). They also emphasize that political priority is necessary but insufficient to address an international or national policy problem successfully. Policy frameworks, technical and institutional capacity, and accountability systems are likely to be other important elements to ensure successful implementation. Despite these limitations, we found the framework to be a helpful tool for understanding the (lack of) ascendance of ECE on national policy agendas in LMICs. 4. Results In this section, we first discuss briefly how ECE has evolved in Ethiopia, Liberia, the Punjab, and Tanzania, with a focus on key policy developments since 2010 (see Figure 1). Then, we present the findings of our comparative analysis of how different factors facilitated or constrained political priority for scaling ECE in each of the focus countries. 11 Figure 1. ECE Policy Milestones in the Focus Countries (1990-2018) 4.1. Early childhood education policy developments Ethiopia The Government of Ethiopia dramatically scaled up ECE opportunities over the past decade to reach almost 4 million young children. After many years providing guidance and oversight to non-state actors delivering formal and non-formal ECE services, the Ministry of Education became more engaged in the sub-sector and focused on expanding the O-Class, an optional, fee-free “reception” year prior to entering Grade 1 (Woodhead et al., 2017). The government led a multi-year, participatory stakeholder process culminating in the launch of the National Policy Framework for Early Childhood Care and Education (NPF) in 2010 and marked a turning point for early learning. Between 2010 and 2016, the GER for 4-6- year-olds in ECE increased from 5 to 50 percent. The current Education Sector Development plan (ESDP V), formalized government engagement in ECE by calling for 80 percent enrollment of 4-6-year-olds and an O-Class to be attached to every primary school to reach all 6-year-olds by 2020. However, with no dedicated budget line and limited donor support, access and financing vary across regions, favoring more developed areas (Rossiter et al., 2018). Another issue is that less than half of children in the O-Class are the target age 6. The 2018 General Education Quality Improvement Program for Equity (GEQIP-E) seeks to address regional disparities in access and improve the quality of the O-Class (World Bank, 2017a). The 12 government recently launched a new Education Development Roadmap 2018-2030, which includes an ambitious target for expanding the O-Class from 6-year-olds to 4- to 5-year-olds by 2030 (MOE, 2018). Drawn from the Roadmap, the government has proposed that O-Class for 4- to 5-year-olds will be fully financed by the government in the country’s 10 year development plan. Liberia Early learning has been nominally on the government agenda since the end of the second Liberian civil war in 2003. Under the leadership of former President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, there were significant efforts to develop policy frameworks and improve governance of the sub-sector at the national level. In 2011, an ECE Bureau reporting to the Deputy Minister of Instruction was established within the Ministry of Education to provide support and oversight to ECE. A National Inter-Sectoral Committee on ECD supports the implementation of a National Integrated Policy for ECD. According to government policy, ECE is for children between the ages of three and five. However, it is common for overage children to enroll in and spend more than two years in ECE before transitioning to primary education. Half of children enrolled in ECE are aged 6–11 and three-quarters of students are overage for their level in ECE. Currently, the net enrollment ratio in ECE is 29 percent. Although ECE is included in both Liberia’s previous education sector plan and the current Getting to Best Education Sector Plan (2017 - 2021), insufficient resources have hampered the scaling of quality ECE. Schools are underfunded, with limited teaching and learning materials and high pupil-teacher ratios, particularly in the public sector. Most ECE teachers have no qualifications, and few have received ECE-specific training. According to recent studies, the national ECE curriculum is used in only a third of schools; play-based and child-centered pedagogical approaches are rarely observed. Although schools cannot charge fees for primary education, they can for ECE. Most parents have difficulties paying fees in full and on time, and even more so for those enrolling their children in private and community schools (OPM, 2019). Punjab Province, Pakistan In Pakistan, ECE has historically referred to the “katchi” class, a grade prior to formal schooling for three to five year olds that evolved in the 1990s from informal spaces for young children with older siblings attending school. For many years, these classes were well-established, if not consistently implemented, in government and private schools. The School Education Department (SED), with encouragement from international partners, has taken a more intentional approach to scaling ECE as the foundation of the education system. In 2013, the Quaid-e-Azam Academy for Educational Development (QAED), the training arm of SED, introduced formal center-based ECE to improve child-friendly environments for young children in primary schools. In 2014, the constitutional entitlement on the Right to Education was 13 extended to include fee-free and compulsory schooling for children ages 3-16. The first Punjab ECE Policy of 2017 formalized government commitment to the sub-sector. To support its implementation, the government created a “New Tier of Schooling” with a dedicated three-year budget line in the New Deal for Education 2018. As of early 2019, about 97 percent of public schools in the Punjab had katchi classes or other forms of ECE, reaching 5.7 million children. Although increased political attention, legal and policy frameworks, sector planning, financing, and implementation models on the ground have contributed to building the ECE sub-sector, current enrollment of 3-5 year olds is around 26 percent, with ongoing quality concerns related to teacher training, parent engagement, and coordination with other sectors (Jamil et al., 2019). Tanzania In 2014, Tanzania became the first country in Eastern and Southern Africa to enact one year of free and compulsory pre-primary education for 5-6 year olds as part of its fee-free basic education system (UNICEF, 2017). Officially formalized in the 1995 Education and Training Policy, the ECE sub-sector has benefitted from recent political momentum and campaign commitments to expand free basic education. Most government primary schools now include a pre-primary classroom, and satellite preschool centers supported by UNICEF and other partners have expanded in rural communities. Despite the challenges of implementing this policy with limited resources and unclear implementation guidelines, the number of children enrolled in pre-primary education more than doubled between 2005 and 2016, with a boost of 46 percent within the first year of the new policy. Enrolment in non-state preschools increased by five times over the same period. Overcrowded classrooms, a pupil to qualified teacher ratio of 1:183, and lack of teaching and learning materials compromised the quality of ECE settings. Recent studies of children entering primary school found no difference in school readiness of those who attended preschool compared to those who did not (RTI, 2017). After a sharp upward trend, pre-primary enrollments are now declining, from a 47 percent gross enrollment rate in 2016 to 41 percent in 2018 (UIS). The 2017 ESDP included a target of increasing the proportion of children enrolled in Standard 1 (first year of primary education) with at least one year of pre-primary education to 87 percent by 2020, an ambitious plan given available financial/human resources. As part of their support for implementing the Education Sector Development Plan, GPE and the World Bank provide limited funding for early learning quality improvement activities such as the provision of books, curricular materials, training for pre- primary teachers and the establishment of satellite centers (RTI, 2018). Table 1 provides an overview of ECE policy in the four focus countries. 14 Table 1. Overview of ECE Policy in the Four Focus Countries Fee-free Compulsory Legal entitlement Target ages Ethiopia ✔ ❌ ❌ O-Class: 6 8 Liberia ❌ ❌ ❌ ECE: 3-5 Punjab, Pakistan ✔ ✔9 ✔ ECE: 3-5 Tanzania ✔ ✔ ❌ Pre-primary: 5-6 4.2. Comparative analysis Transnational influence Across the four cases, international actors -- especially UN agencies and donors -- have played an important role in promoting attention and action around early learning. Although fewer donors are involved in ECE compared to basic education in these focus countries, they have exerted strong “transnational influence” on national agenda setting processes (see Table 2). These international actors have been most involved in pushing the issue through global norm promotion. Some common examples include promoting relevant Sustainable Development Goals and targets, disseminating research such as the Lancet series on ECD, and introducing global metrics like MELQO to national policymakers and partners. Transnational actors have been engaged in external resource provision primarily by responding to government requests for technical assistance (e.g., supporting early childhood policy development, guidelines, etc.). Through this technical support, development partners have encouraged the mainstreaming of ECE into education sector planning and programs, which has helped unlock new domestic and international financing. However, donor funding to ECE is limited, suggesting that this is not a high priority issue for donors (or for governments, given that greater political commitment would likely help attract more donor investment). For example, the percentage of total education Overseas Development Aid financing for pre-primary education is only 0.034 percent in Ethiopia, 0.008 percent in Liberia, and 0.011 percent in Tanzania (OECD DAC CRS database). 8 In Ethiopia, O-Class target ages are expected to change to ages 5-6 in 2020/21. 9 In 2 provinces (Sindh and Punjab) and ICT, ECE is part of the Free and Compulsory Education Act. 15 Table 2. Transnational influence: The role of international agencies in promoting attention to the issue Transnational Ethiopia Liberia Pakistan (Punjab) Tanzania influence Global norm MEDIUM HIGH HIGH MEDIUM promotion: Monitoring progress Donors (especially OSF) EFA and SDGs have been Small group of Efforts by toward EFA and SDGs have had more of an fairly important in calling international partners - international has been important in agenda-setting role in pre- attention to early most prominently agencies to calling attention to ECE. primary than in basic childhood. UNICEF has UNICEF - have advocated establish a global UNICEF has played a key education. Arguments been the lead development for the government to norm concerning role in advocating for about ECE based in brain partner behind scaling and prioritize quality ECE. early learning greater government science and as a good quality improvement, with investment in ECE with return on investment were a more recent push from more recent engagement influential in building the World Bank. from the World Bank. support in Liberia. External MEDIUM MEDIUM MEDIUM MEDIUM resource UNICEF has provided OSF has supported policy UNICEF, DFID, and the UNICEF, World Bank, provision: the ongoing TA to the and curriculum World Bank have helped GPE, DFID, Children in offer of financial government, starting with development, capacity- the SED embed ECE in Crossfire, USAID and and technical ECE strategy development building of MOE officials, national/provincial others provide technical resources by in 2007. Since 2017, and piloting of reforms and support to the government international World Bank, GPE, professional development implementation efforts. on pre-primary education agencies to scale UNICEF, and DFID have activities since 2007. INGOs such as Save the policy and financial ECE services provided technical and GPE-funded/WB- Children and Plan support for materials, financial support to supervised “Getting to International have directly teacher training, and incorporate ECE in Best in Education” supported SED to improve expansion of community- MOE’s large education supports equitable access access to quality ECE. based ECE. Less than 2% projects. This includes to ECE services and of aid budget for school grants for O-Class, teacher quality in ECE in education goes to ECE. ECE curriculum revision, targeted disadvantaged and teacher training; counties. however, ECE makes up about 0.03% of external aid to education. UNICEF was the first major international actor engaged in ECE in Ethiopia, the Punjab, and Tanzania, and continues to be an important government partner on this issue. In Ethiopia, for example, UNICEF has provided ongoing technical assistance to the government and advocated for greater involvement in the sub-sector since the 1990s. In 2007, UNICEF provided support for ECE strategy development which eventually led to the landmark National Policy Framework for ECCE. UNICEF was also influential in developing various models of ECE provision, including Child-to-Child, O-Class, and Accelerated School Readiness program. UNICEF has provided strong and longstanding technical support in the Punjab and Tanzania on policy issues, as well as “on the ground” support to improve the quality of preschool classes through training, materials, and infrastructure improvement. With growing global momentum for early learning, the World Bank, the UK government, GPE, and others began engaging with these governments, initially offering technical support, and then funding small ECE components of larger education projects. For example, the World Bank and UK provided 16 technical assistance for the School Education Department to develop the 2017 ECE policy in the Punjab. According to a source who worked in the SED at that time, the policy development process helped convince political leaders of the importance of early learning. In turn, these “friends of ECD” within the government have advocated for more funding from donors. INGOs are involved in some advocacy activities and technical support, but more commonly in the implementation of small-scale programs. In Ethiopia, the World Bank introduced an ECE component into the 2017 Ethiopia Education Results Based Financing Project funded by GPE (World Bank, 2017b). This $5 million component supports improving the learning environment of pre-primary classes in two disadvantaged regions of Ethiopia by developing a new ECE curriculum and training more than 90 percent of O-Class teachers in these regions. It also provides a platform to pilot interventions, now being scaled up nationwide through GEQIP-E with significant contributions of the Government and $60 million funding commitment by the World Bank. 10 In addition, GEQIP-E has provided technical support to revise the National Policy Framework for ECE to reflect rapid changes in the ECE landscape in Ethiopia and harmonize the multiple policy efforts to ECE from the central and regional governments, donors, and local stakeholders (World Bank, 2017a). The pattern is slightly different in Liberia, where one main donor has provided leadership on early learning. Since 2007, the Open Society Foundation’s Early Childhood Program, in cooperation with the Open Society Initiative for West Africa, has worked in Liberia in response to the government’s request for support to build the national ECD system. OSF supported the development of the National Inter- Sectoral ECD Policy and the national curriculum for ECE, as well as the design and roll-out of training and professional development and demonstration programs. While OSF has helped the government raise the visibility of ECD, it has been challenging to bring in other funders. UNICEF, a key advocate and convener in other countries, has prioritized basic education and has been comparatively less involved in ECE in Liberia (Amnon & Hyder, 2015). After an unsuccessful attempt to incorporate a significant early learning component into an earlier GPE-funded project (Amnon & Hyder, 2015), the $11 million Getting to Best Education project supports equitable access to ECE, teacher quality in early childhood education, and primary education in targeted disadvantaged counties (OPM, 2019). Actor power In our analysis, we considered four factors contributing to “actor power”: policy community cohesion, national political entrepreneurship (over time), guiding institutions or governance structure at different levels of government, and civil society mobilization (see Table 3). With the exception of Ethiopia, the 10 The $60 million allocated to O-Class intervention in GEQIP-E is the disbursement-linked indicator; the government will receive $60 million if it achieves the goal related to ECE. 17 individuals and organizations engaged in early learning have not successfully coalesced to encourage the government to prioritize this issue. We identified high-level and influential political champions in Liberia and Ethiopia with entrepreneurship emerging in the Punjab and Tanzania. Governance is generally weak, and even more so at decentralized levels. Civil society mobilization and advocacy for ECE is uncommon in most of the countries in our study. Table 3. Actor power: The strength of the individuals and organizations concerned with the issue Actor Power Ethiopia Liberia Pakistan (Punjab) Tanzania Policy community MEDIUM LOW LOW MEDIUM cohesion: the degree Multi-stakeholder ECCE Small policy community Limited coordination An ECD stakeholder to which early learning Taskforce negotiated for early learning, led by among early learning group composed of donors promoters coalesced as national ECD policy OSF/OSISA. UNICEF has promoters, including and implementers meets a political force framework in 2010. been less involved than in international agencies with government to pushing the Current ECCE Task Force other countries. (World Bank, UNICEF) discuss policy. However, government to act is an informal, but active and NGOs. there is a lack of a group that brings different coordinated effort to push actors together to discuss the government to revisions to the policy. improve the quality of ECE provision. National political MEDIUM HIGH historically, LOW historically, LOW historically, entrepreneurship: the The State Minister for LOW recently MEDIUM recently MEDIUM recently presence of respected General Education has President Sirleaf lent her Frequent changes in the Limited political and capable national been a champion for an considerable prestige to Secretary of Education has leadership in support of political champions for integrated approach to ECE, proclaiming a year made it difficult to early learning. Emerging early learning ECD by promoting cross- of ECE, inviting OSF to cultivate political champions in the MOE sectoral coordination support ECE in the leadership. While political and President's Office, across the Ministry of country, and setting up a leadership had been Regional Administration Education, Health, and model ECE center and lacking, the Government and Local Government Women and Child Affairs. distance learning for in place since 2018 has (PO-RALG): kindergarten teachers. been committed to Commissioner of Lack of recent high-level strengthening ECE in Education since August political champions. policy and budget. 2018 is an early learning “Friends of ECE” in the specialist. government have mobilized resources from donors. Guiding institutions HIGH national, LOW MEDIUM provincial, LOW or governance MEDIUM regional Liberia established an LOW district MOEST is responsible for structure: effective MOE has clear lead ECE bureau in 2011, but SED became the “apex policy making, planning organizations or responsibility for ECE. its potential is limited by institution” for and quality assurance. PO- coordinating Despite the decentralized insufficient human and implementing ECE RALG is responsible for mechanisms with a system, Government financial resources. Lack services in 2017. Different local government and mandate to lead commitment to expanding of communication and definitions of quality oversees the delivery and ECE has been funding limits between the PMIU and management of basic instrumental for rolling coordination between QAED has led to education. Inter- out the O-class model. Ministries and CEOs/ misalignment. Local ministerial ECD However, implementation DEOs. districts provide limited committee has been varies from one region to support to schools due to dormant for several years. another, due to budget limited resources, which There is fragmentation constraints, workforce leads to uneven across government issues, and long distances implementation. agencies and limited to schools in some areas. coordination with non- governmental actors. 18 Civil society LOW LOW MEDIUM MEDIUM mobilization: the Civil society organizations Civil society advocacy is While the overall role of CSOs are more engaged in mobilization of and teacher unions are not weak. The Early INGOs has declined, civil service delivery than grassroots very involved in advocacy Childhood Alliance has society has mobilized and advocacy. Non-state organizations to in general. Addis Ababa pushed for a budget for advocated for ECE for actors (UNICEF, AKF, promote the issue University (Young Lives) ECE, but is currently many years, playing a CiC) have organized and NGOs (Save the dormant. complementary role to national fora for Children, World Vision) Local and civil society government. Key civil stakeholders to advance have promoted ECE/ECD organizations have acted society actors (TRC, policy dialogue. There are and piloted new as “champions” however; AKU, ITA, Alif Laila, efforts to revive the approaches. Although they are not necessarily CGN, etc.) have provided Tanzania ECD Network parent demand for O- primary figures. Most of support to government (TECDEN). Teachers Class in rural areas is these organizations are schools through provision union is an ally in strong, this does not involved in small scale of infrastructure, learning implementation of pre- translate into organized implementation in areas materials, teacher training, primary policy, but advocacy. such as teacher training. and related interventions. generally union strength Teacher unions are not has decreased. Decreasing active on this issue. parent demand for preschools due to large classes and limited school feeding. First, the policy community 11 for ECE is stronger and more cohesive in Ethiopia and Tanzania than in the other countries. In Ethiopia, a multi-stakeholder Early Childhood Care and Education Task Force composed of government representatives, donors, and interest groups coalesced in 2006. The group commissioned a baseline report on the status of ECCE in Ethiopia which identified major challenges in the delivery of ECCE. Informed by this study, a multi-year policy development and negotiation process continued. The Task Force marked an important victory with the launch of the National Policy Framework in 2010, which led to a shift toward greater government engagement in ECE. Despite this inclusive approach, regional education bureaus, which are responsible for implementation of educational programs, claim they were not well represented in the design of the NPF (Rossiter et al., 2018). The current ECCE Task Force, while not a formal group, has been active since 2019 in bringing different actors together and building a new partnership to revise the Policy Framework for Early Childhood Development and Education. The policy community also is strengthened by the involvement of local and international researchers in the development of the new Education Development Roadmap, which addresses coverage and financing of O-Class. In contrast, the policy communities in Tanzania, the Punjab, and Liberia have been less influential in effecting change. In the Punjab, for example, some of the key international actors promoting early learning are not well coordinated with each other, and at times, compete for influence. The integration of newer international actors into the policy space has not been smooth. In Tanzania, there is a dearth of stakeholders making a coordinated push for the government to respond to the “positive emergency” of 11The “policy community” comprises government and non-governmental actors concerned with a policy issue, including international donors and NGOs that are engaged in a given domestic policy context. 19 lack of access to quality ECE programs. However, non-state actors have been more active in coming together to advance the ECE policy dialogue in the past couple of years. Second, national political entrepreneurship at the highest level was most visible in Liberia, where former President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf lent her considerable prestige and raised the profile of ECE as a political issue. For example, she proclaimed a year of ECE, invited OSF to provide technical and financial support to the sub-sector, and set up a model ECE center based on the “Case des Tout Petits” in Senegal. This leadership opened the door for Deputy Ministers for Planning and Instruction to engage with external funders and advocate for support for ECE (Amnon & Hyder, 2015). However, since the change in government, political momentum for ECE has declined. Political entrepreneurship for ECE from within the education sector is more common in the focus countries, though this appears less effective than higher-level policy entrepreneurship at leveraging broad- based political support. In Ethiopia, for example, the State Minister for General Education brought together different sectors and championed an integrated approach to ECD that is visible in the four pillars of the NPF (Rossiter et al., 2018). Support for ECE in Tanzania and the Punjab has improved with the recent emergence of respected and capable political champions within the education sector. For example, an ECE specialist was appointed Commissioner of Education in Tanzania in 2018. Third, weak guiding institutions are another constraint to “actor power.” Across the four cases, there is a disconnect between the entities responsible for policy leadership in ECE and those responsible for implementation. This is most apparent in Tanzania. The MOEST is responsible for policy making, planning and quality assurance, while the President’s Office on Regional Administration and Local Government (PO-RALG) oversees the delivery and management of basic education, including pre- primary education. This fragmentation across government agencies is compounded by limited coordination with and across non-governmental actors. An Inter-ministerial ECD committee that was once a model for other countries has been dormant for several years. There are similar concerns in Liberia and the Punjab. In Liberia, the ECE Bureau, established within the MoE in 2011, is responsible for strengthening and overseeing all early childhood centers and pre-primary education and leads the coordination of ECD with other sectoral ministries. Despite its promise, it has not been staffed with high level officials with power to influence policy direction and resource allocation. In the Punjab, the School Education Department is responsible for ECE service delivery and coordination with the districts through its training and monitoring arms; however there is no dedicated ECE unit at 20 SED to strengthen the sub-sector. Even in Ethiopia, where strong commitment from the federal government has been fundamental for rolling out the O-Class in Ethiopia, implementation varies from one region to another (Rossiter et al., 2018). Finally, civil society mobilization has not been influential in pushing ECE in most of the cases. In general, NGOs and Community Service Organizations (CSOs) are more active in service provision than advocacy. The few early childhood advocacy coalitions and civil society networks that we identified have faced funding and sustainability issues. In Liberia, for example, the Early Childhood Alliance once advocated for a budget for ECE, but lacked effective political tactics and has become dormant more recently. CSO engagement in Tanzania has faced similar challenges. Recently, non-state actors, particularly international NGOs (e.g., UNICEF, AKF, CiC), have taken an informal lead in advancing the policy dialogue and are working to revive the Tanzania Early Childhood Development Network (TECDEN), a once vibrant professional and advocacy association that experienced a difficult operational and financial period. In contrast, civil society organizations (e.g., TRC, AKU, ITA, Alif Laila, CGN) in Pakistan have played a significant role in bridging ECE funding and delivery gaps since the early 2000s. The voices of influential implementers were amplified after the decentralization of education to the provinces in 2011 (ITA, 2019). Civil society groups influence ECE policy through their partnerships with government and through direct advocacy efforts. Some NGOs in the Punjab provide additional support to government schools through hard (infrastructure, learning materials, etc.) and soft (teacher training, development plans, etc.) interventions, while others have created private or community-based centers to address equity issues. Across these countries, the role of parents and teachers in agenda setting and policy formulation is weak even though they play a pivotal role in shaping demand for, and quality of, services. 12 Teacher unions, which have been instrumental in education reform, are relatively absent in ECE issues. The exception is Tanzania, where the TTU partners with the government in implementing the new pre-primary policy and engages in ECE advocacy (RTI, 2018). For example, to help address the lack of professional ECE teachers, the TTU led the development of a competency-based profile and training for early childhood educators. Lack of engagement of teacher unions may be one reason why early childhood workforce issues (e.g., pay and working conditions, large class sizes, limited training/professional development) are under addressed. Although parents are not formally organized or mobilized in any of the countries, parent demand for the O-Class in rural areas helped secure support for expanding provision in Ethiopia, whereas 12 While not explicitly included in the framework, we included parents in our analysis, because they shape demand for their children’s early learning opportunities and are often the main funder of these services. 21 declining pre-primary enrolments in Tanzania have been attributed to parent concerns about their children participating in large classes with no school feeding. Ideas We examined both the external frames (public portrayals of the issue) and internal frames (degree of consensus within the policy community on how the problem is defined, caused, and solved) (see Table 4). Although ECD is a multi-sectoral issue, involving health, nutrition, social and child protection, our study focused on ECE and those engaged in the education sector in the focus countries. In all four cases, for example, the Ministry of Education is the lead agency for ECE. Not surprisingly, we learned from our analysis that early learning is typically framed for decision makers and the general public as an education issue that promotes school readiness, addresses poor learning outcomes and drop out in the early grades, and improves the internal efficiency of the education system. However, it is significant that there is more attention to these “education arguments” than on other rationales for investing in ECE such as child care support for families, for example. The public discourse (including in newspaper stories) also focuses more on formal preschool for children prior to school entry rather than on early stimulation and learning activities for younger children in homes or other settings that are commonly included as part of early learning within the Nurturing Care Framework (WHO, 2018). Taking a narrower approach may help mitigate the framing challenges and complexity of advocacy for ECD more generally (c.f., Shawar & Shiffman, 2017). At the same time, multi-sectoral engagement and coordination is likely to be necessary to achieve the objectives of policies and plans that fall outside the responsibilities of education systems. Table 4. Ideas: The ways in which those involved with the issue understand and portray it Ideas Ethiopia Liberia Pakistan (Punjab) Tanzania External frame: public HIGH LOW MEDIUM MEDIUM portrayals of the issue ECE framed as a solution Newspapers and the Decisionmakers Government’s early that resonate with to reduce dropouts in the media are enthusiastic increasingly understand learning efforts tend to external audiences, early grades, improve about covering ECE that learning begins be bundled with goals of especially political school readiness and and education and the early and investment in fee free basic education. leaders who control long-term educational coverage about foundational learning is Some political resources achievement, and government efforts is critical to improving recognition that improve internal largely positive. primary education. improving school efficiency of the Child-friendly readiness could education system. Local classrooms pilot helped contribute to primary research and parent create a greater school performance. testimonials support understanding of quality these claims. ECE. Internal frame: the HIGH LOW LOW MEDIUM degree to which the There is growing International actors 2017 ECE policy calls Some disagreement policy community agrees consensus that the O- have brought attention for 2 years of pre- about the intended on the definition and class is the primary to overage enrollment, primary (ages 3-5), but duration of pre-primary causes of the problem modality with other but it has not been a there is confusion on education and whether and preferred solutions forms of ECE provision top-tier issue for the the ground about how expansion should be 22 to complement. it. The government. Current ECE is defined and how through primary schools Education Roadmap discussion of whether it should be or community settings. 2018-30 reflects a preschool should be implemented. There Since 2020, policy consensus on the free (Pres. Sirleaf had may be three kinds of focuses on 1-year of pre- extension of O-class proposed a gradual ECE provision within primary through addition from 6-year-olds to 4- move in this direction). one school. of pre-primary and 5-year-olds. Gap between what the classrooms in public Ministry wants re: play- primary schools with based curriculum and satellite centers in remote what schools are communities far away doing/what parents from primary schools. want. Transnational actors sometimes use the dissemination of neuroscience and other child development research (often from the Global North) to influence how early learning is portrayed to policymakers and the public. For example, in the Punjab: “Since [the 1990s], research groups and civil society have begun to inform the public debate on the developmental needs of significant numbers of children being ignored, especially since advances in neuro-sciences pointed to the critical brain development happening in the early years” (Jamil et al., 2019). Another prominent theme in the policy discourse is equity, which provided a justification for support for ECE in Ethiopia’s ESDP V (Ministry of Education, 2015): Quality, targeted, ECCE provision will be used as a tool to increase equity in the education system. Without continued government expansion of opportunities, especially for the most disadvantaged children, ECCE will favour those children from relatively wealthy backgrounds, in predominantly urban areas. By focusing ECCE expansion first in the areas with lower educational attainment (and on the children most at risk of exclusion, drop-out and under-achievement within those areas), the government will seek to improve the performance of children who can benefit the most from the support in order to transition more successfully into Grade 1 (p. 77). The external framing of the issue in these countries emphasizes access more than quality, mirroring the expansion of primary education in LMIC. For example, in Tanzania, public arguments for ECE have focused on fee-free pre-primary education to appeal to both politicians and voters. “[T]he fee-free policy itself was motivated by politicians wanting to appeal to voters, especially in rural areas who are most marginalized in terms of access. Focusing on reducing costs of education has a more tangible and immediate effect on the lives of voters rather than a narrative of quality, which is a more difficult concept and not easy to measure” (RTI, 2018, p. 64). In terms of internal framing, in Ethiopia, there is strong stakeholder agreement on the O-Class as primary service modality, while allowing other forms of ECE provision to complement. In the other cases, there is some discord within the policy communities - specifically between governments and transnational actors - regarding policy priorities and preferred solutions. With regard to policy priorities, for example, in Liberia, there is a lack of consensus on the need to address overage enrollment in ECE, and there are debates about whether or not to eliminate fees. In Tanzania, there has been tension between the 23 government and other ECE proponents and implementers about whether satellite centers in rural communities should be part of the formal system. The government has yet to approve the Guidelines for Satellite Centers or to agree to pay paraprofessional teachers (RTI, 2018). In the focus countries, as elsewhere in the world (Wolf, 2019), official policies and curricula promoting play-based ECE are misaligned with views on the ground about the appropriate style of teaching and learning. In Liberia, for example, the Ministry promotes a play-based approach whereas schools and parents favor more teacher- directed approaches (OPM, 2019). Disagreement among key stakeholders on the internal frame can make it challenging for governments and their partners to fulfill their commitments to ECE. For example, in the Punjab, there is a lack of conceptual clarity about how ECE is defined, both in government planning/budget documents and in practice. While new ECE classrooms are intended to replace the Katchi class or equivalent (nursery or Pakki), in practice both may operate in parallel in many schools, with the Katchi as a transitional year from ECE to Grade 1. There may be up to three grades of pre-primary education in some schools, which leads to confusion for parents, inefficient implementation, and difficulty monitoring enrollments, attendance, and learning (Jamil et al., 2019). Political contexts The broader “political context” shapes opportunities to influence decision makers. We looked at political transitions and other policy windows, competing priorities from other issues in the education sector, and the presence or absence of focusing events to generate attention to early learning (see Table 5). The picture is uneven but overall suggests that with few exceptions, ECE proponents have not fully benefited from developments in the political and policy landscape to garner attention and resources for the issue. Table 5. Political contexts: The environments in which actors operate Political contexts Ethiopia Liberia Pakistan (Punjab) Tanzania Political transitions or MEDIUM MEDIUM MEDIUM MEDIUM other policy windows: Following the political President Weah has An analysis of 2018 In 2015, the majority political changes, such transition in 2018, Prime developed a pro-poor political manifestos party’s campaign as democratization, that Minister Abiy’s agenda that included ECE, found only two of five manifesto included of 1 positively or adversely administration has given as well as other focused more on ECE, year of free and affect opportunities to prominence to MOE’s components, but ECE is but the newly elected compulsory pre-primary influence Education Development not an explicit priority government implemented education. After the decisionmakers Roadmap and provided (compared to former Pres. the New Deal for election, pre-primary direction to implementing Sirleaf) and was not a Education, which became formalized it including two-years significant part of the includes a three-year within basic education. free, compulsory pre- presidential campaign. budget to scale quality primary education as part pre-primary education. of the general education system. However, the high 24 turnover of high-level officials and ECE focal staff at the MOE becomes an obstacle to gain sustainable political support to ECE. Competing policy LOW MEDIUM LOW LOW priorities: priority for Historically more political ECE budget accounts for ECE plays only a small More attention to other education causes attention to higher levels roughly 11% of the role on the education primary and secondary that divert policymaker of education. Only 3% of education budget; not a agenda. Limited funding education. attention from the issue the education budget goes large amount but is better for EC educators – Estimated 5-6% of the of early learning to early learning in ESDP funded than in many other through non-salary costs, education budget goes to V (2015-2020). Regions countries. not currently included in ECE. have no dedicated budget recurrent budget. line for early learning and report scarcity of block grant funds. Focusing events: The MEDIUM MEDIUM LOW MEDIUM organization of forums In 2018, a National In 2013, the first Liberian None identified. In 2012, National Forum [or press coverage or a Workshop on ECD hosted ECD conference, hosted on ECD attended by 5 crisis] to generate by MOE with support by ECD bureau of MOE, Ministers led to national attention for from 3 Ministries, in cooperation with commitment to finalize the cause international donors, OMEP (World the national ECD policy. regional governments, and Organization for Early Cabinet rejected the civil society organizations Childhood) was held with policy because it was aimed to raise the support from UNICEF and seen as duplicative with visibility of ECD in the OSF. Pres. Sirleaf gave the existing Child government’s planning the keynote. Development Policy. A and facilitate the cross- new multi-stakeholder sectoral coordination to National ECD Task create coherent ECD Force held an event in systems across three 2018. Ministries. Recent political transitions have been a mixed blessing for early learning. In Ethiopia, when Prime Minister Dr. Abiy Ahmed came to power in 2018, he gave prominence to the Education Development Roadmap including a proposal of 2 years of free, compulsory pre-primary education as part of the general education. This policy change, which signals a big stride forward in ECE in Ethiopia, was influenced by evidence from Young Lives, along with consultations including with communities, teachers, regional offices and civil society organizations. In Tanzania’s 2015 elections, the successful party’s campaign manifesto included 1 year of free, compulsory pre-primary education. After the election, pre-primary education became formalized within basic education and was officially implemented in the Education and Training Policy in 2016, leading to a surge in enrolment. In the 2018 provincial elections in Punjab, only two of five political manifestos refer to ECE, but the newly elected government implemented the New Deal for Education, which includes a three-year budget to scale quality pre-primary education (SED, 2019). In contrast, the most recent political transition in Liberia has been less favorable for ECE. While former President Sirleaf raised the visibility of ECE, this issue was not a significant part of the most recent presidential campaign. President Weah has developed a pro-poor agenda that includes ECE, but it has not been an explicit priority. In addition to elections, broader education reform movements have 25 opened policy windows for early learning. For example, poor results on national student learning assessments have called attention to the need to focus on quality education throughout the system, including the early childhood sub-sector. Even with political momentum for early learning, it has been challenging for champions and proponents to fully take advantage of political transitions and other policy windows in part because all four governments face constrained resources for education. Not surprisingly, competing policy priorities within the education system - poor early grade learning outcomes, persistent numbers of out-of-school children, bumpy transitions to secondary education - consistently receive more policymaker attention and domestic funding than ECE. These issue areas are backed by more powerful champions and stronger coalitions and institutions. For example, although the current administration in Tanzania has committed to implementing one year of free pre-primary, ECE is treated as an “afterthought” to primary/secondary education, receiving less than 6 percent of the budget, which is still more than many similar countries. Focusing events are important in the agenda setting literature (Kingdon, 1995), and three of the four countries have had one, all fora organized by proponents. President Sireaf gave a keynote address at Liberia’s first national ECD conference in 2013, an event was hosted by ECD Bureau of MOE, in cooperation with OMEP, 13 UNICEF, and OSF and is described as a “turning point” (Amnon & Hyder, 2015). 14 In Tanzania, the National Forum on ECD attended by five Ministers led to commitment to finalize the National ECD policy (Bakuza, 2014), but the cabinet ultimately rejected the policy because it was deemed duplicative with the existing Child Development Policy. More recently, in 2018, a national stakeholder forum brought together government, donors and implementers to discuss ECD. However, without a formal coordinating structure or budget, it has been difficult for the government to follow through on these discussions. Issue characteristics Evidence of poor learning outcomes has raised public and political awareness of challenges facing the education system while also increasing understanding of the potential of quality ECE programs to address them (see Table 6). The first factor related to “issue characteristics” -- the availability and use of evidence (credible indicators) -- is most prominent in Ethiopia. The first EGRA results showing poor learning outcomes in rural areas were released at same time as the National Policy Framework (2010), and this favorable timing drew attention to the new policy and connected investment in ECE to improved school 13 The “Organisation Mondiale pour l'Éducation Préscolaire” or “World Organisation for Early Childhood Education” is abbreviated as OMEP in all languages. 14 https://www.opensocietyfoundations.org/voices/president-johnson-sirleaf-backs-early-childhood-development-liberia 26 readiness (Rossiter et al., 2018). The Young Lives study, a longitudinal cohort study of young children, has been particularly influential by showing that ECE experiences are important for children’s learning at the ages of five, eight and later years and that many children in rural areas were missing out (Woldehanna, 2016; Woldehanna & Gebremedhin, 2012). Young Lives researchers have continued to provide data to help operationalize O-Class and inform scaling-up ECE (e.g., Woodhead, 2017). Table 6. Issue characteristics: Features of the problem Issue characteristics Ethiopia Liberia Pakistan (Punjab) Tanzania Credible indicators: HIGH LOW MEDIUM MEDIUM the availability and A 2007 baseline report Difficult to obtain ASER 2019 results have Limited government strategic deployment identified ECE delivery current information, demonstrated that 71% of data on early learning of evidence to challenges and need for including class sizes; children in grade 3 cannot outcomes and quality demonstrate the national strategy. First EMIS is out of date. read with understanding. of settings. In 2012, presence of a problem EGRA released at same time Limited outcomes Government is now the worst primary and that can be used to as National Policy measurement prior to focusing on ECE through leaving exam results monitor progress Framework (2010) showed ELP intervention. Grade 3 as a foundational led to the poor learning outcomes in learning block. PMIU is development of the rural areas. tracking progress toward Big Results Now and Young Lives has provided SDG 4.2.1. increased recognition data to help operationalize of importance of O-class and used school readiness to international experience to primary school inform ESDP V. performance. Effective MEDIUM LOW LOW MEDIUM interventions: the Young Lives research There are early learning Existence of the katchi Evidence from extent to which showed that ECE interventions piloted by class since the 1990 as well different ECE models proposed means of experiences are important for Save, We Care, and as private sector and public- available (e.g., addressing the learning later and that many other NGOs. President private initiatives have satellite centers problem are clearly children in rural areas were Sirleaf established a encouraged gradual scale supported by explained, cost missing out. Existing models model center informed up. References to global UNICEF, DFID effective, backed by of ECE provision (e.g., KG, by work in Senegal. evidence and examples of School Readiness scientific evidence, child-to-child) informed Limited evaluation data quality. More evidence on Program). simple to implement, development of the O-class on effective programs. outcomes of effective Government has and inexpensive program. O-Class emerged programs in Pakistan focused more as government priority due needed to persuade higher narrowly on formal to low cost and feasibility. levels of government. public preschools. In the Punjab and Tanzania, student assessment data have called attention to early learning to some extent. In response to the 2019 ASER results showing that 71 percent of children in Grade 3 could not read with understanding, the Punjab Government decided to focus more on ECE through Grade 3 as a foundational learning block. In Tanzania, very poor primary leaving exam results in 2012 led to the launch of Big Results Now. The decision to include ECE in this education reform recognizes the potential contribution of enhanced school readiness to primary school performance (RTI, 2018). The second factor related to “issue characteristics” is the availability of effective interventions that are clearly explained, cost effective, backed by scientific evidence, simple to implement, and inexpensive. Across countries, NGOs, community organizations, and the private sector have experimented with a range 27 of community-based programs, accelerated school readiness programs, and school-based programs. Despite diverse potential intervention models for ECE, these governments favor a “preschool model” using the existing primary school infrastructure (and teaching workforce). In Ethiopia, demonstration programs revealed strong demand among rural communities for ECE services and helped convince the government that the O-Class was affordable and feasible to take on and implement on a large scale (Woodhead et al., 2017). In Punjab, lessons from the UNICEF-supported Child-Friendly Schools and the pilot run by QAED helped create a general understanding of quality ECE as the foundation of the education system (Jamil, 2019), but as one former government official put it, “more evidence [from ECE in Punjab] and more convincing is needed at higher levels of government.” One limiting factor when it comes to “issue characteristics” is that none of the countries collect data on early learning outcomes and programs comprehensively, which hinders efforts to understand the problem and assess progress toward quality and learning goals. Advocates sometimes refer to global research and examples of quality, but these sources of evidence are less persuasive to policymakers. 5. Discussion The four ELP Systems Research countries considered in this analysis, by construction, present a relatively favorable set of conditions for scaling ECE services compared to LMICs in general. Yet even in these cases, the political economy conditions to support sustained commitment to early learning are at best partially present. To the extent that early learning is on the political agenda in these countries, two sets of factors appear most decisive. The first is the response of national policymakers to global efforts to advance early childhood development, including goal setting, technical assistance and, to a lesser extent, funding. The second, related set of factors is the power of ideas around ECE, to which the global community of knowledge and practice has contributed. For most of the focus countries, the concept of ECE as a prerequisite for school readiness and a solution to problems in primary education systems has gained significant traction. At the same time, civil society mobilization around early learning is relatively weak across the board, and few features of the broader political context work to advance ECE as a priority. Outside Ethiopia, policy communities around ECE are fragmented, weak, or both. While civil society groups exist and are involved in early childhood through training, pilot projects, and other direct interventions, they have largely not coalesced with donors, international NGOs and other ECE proponents into a political force 28 behind early learning. In the competitive political systems, political candidates and parties typically have included brief mentions of ECE, preschool, or pre-primary programs as part of a broader agenda in education or equity, but never as a top-tier issue. Other levels of education systems tend to attract greater attention and resources from governments and donors. The main international funders of basic education in these countries provide little, if any, financial support to ECE. Early learning appears to generate relatively few “focusing events” that can galvanize commitment by policymakers. Lessons from the health sector suggest that policy communities tend to be more effective where political entrepreneurs emerged to lead them (Shiffman, 2007). However, individual champions for ECE at the top levels of society, such as President Sirleaf, are more the exception than the rule. Ethiopia has shown a relatively strong set of actors in early learning at the national level, which may help account for its comparative speed in scaling up ECE services from an extremely low baseline. Ethiopia has a cohesive policy community around ECE and a clearer delineation of leadership on ECE in its MOE. Scaling in Ethiopia also benefited from credible research (especially Young Lives, RISE, and the ELP program) and a broadly agreed-upon service model (O-Class) to a greater degree than the other countries. As in the other countries, funding has not kept pace with the need, and the translation of official policy into effective implementation across the country remains challenging. Taken together, these factors are consistent with a strong rhetorical commitment to early learning but a lack of sustained follow-through and resource provision. Governments appear to be persuadable by advocacy, technical assistance, and evidence brought forth by the international community. However, these efforts have failed to translate into commensurate financial investments by donors or governments. While UNESCO UIS estimated that Ethiopia and Tanzania spent 2 percent and 6 percent of government education expenditure on pre-primary, respectively, it is hard to get the precise data on government spending on ECE in many LMICs. One reason is the lack of a separate budget line dedicated to ECE, which signifies a lack of commitment and does not allow for accountability of spending. In the context of weak policy communities and civil society advocacy, the momentum from the international push on early learning does not produce the desired results on the ground. Our results suggest several actions that champions of early learning - be they within international organizations, governments, or civil society - could take to help improve the positioning of ECE on the policy agenda in LMICs. First, build the capacity of civil society organizations currently engaged in direct service provision and teacher training to help channel grassroots energy in a more cohesive way toward advocacy for early learning. Depending on the political context, strategies may include mobilizing 29 parents, engaging with teacher unions, or developing advocacy campaigns targeting politicians and voters. Ideally this mobilization would foster demand for quality, and not only for increased access, by educating civil-society actors on the importance of developmentally appropriate, play-based ECE. Second, commission and generate evidence on effective models of ECE - particularly for outcomes that governments have already shown that they care about, including school readiness and efficiency indicators in the primary system such as repetition and dropout. Such evidence provides concrete guidance for governments already persuaded of the value of early learning in the abstract by evidence- based arguments in international fora. Comparative cost-effectiveness data on different types of ECE interventions may be particularly persuasive for governments in the context of limited budgetary resources. A rich library of measurement tools - such as those developed under MELQO - are available for adaptation at the country level. Combined with proper resourcing of the subsector, quality and outcomes measurement can help bridge the gap between scaling up access and enhancing quality. Third, assist governments in designing and funding more effective institutional structures with clear and empowered leadership for early learning at both national and decentralized levels. Given the inherently multi-sectoral nature of early years services, there is no one-size-fits-all model, but institutional structures such as the Early Childhood Commission in Jamaica and Chile Crece Contigo provide potential models. Cross-sectoral working groups and early childhood champions embedded within sectoral bodies can provide further support to these institutional structures. Well-functioning multi-sectoral institutions can also foster coherence, and reduce competition, between ECE and the broader ECD agenda in a country. Fourth, encourage donor collaboration and pooling of resources for early learning alongside strategies to attract a wider set of funders to the space. By co-financing early learning investments with government, donors can help leverage greater budget commitments to ECE, as has been the case with the Global Partnership for Education in the primary education space. The Nurturing Care Framework, hosted by the World Health Organization, World Bank, and UNICEF, provides one possible platform for greater donor commitment. To test the generalizability of these findings, it would be important to apply this political prioritization framework to early learning in a broader set of countries and regions. Although causal inference in this field is difficult, natural experiments which affect one or more of the factors could be exploited to investigate the association between changes in the political-economic environment and changes in resource provision or other indicators of commitment. In addition, as actors in the early learning space 30 seek to avoid replicating some of the mistakes of the push for universal primary education, and contribute to solving the global learning crisis (World Bank, 2018), it may be valuable to investigate in more detail the political-economic factors that contribute to demand for quality, not only demand for access to early childhood services for younger learners. As countries rebuild their education systems after the pandemic and look to ways to promote resilience to future shocks, the extent to which ECE will be prioritized is an open question. A World Bank report on shocks to education systems in the context of COVID-19 and policy responses raises concern: As most households and education systems will prioritize continued learning for older children while schools are closed, emphasis on early childhood education may decline. This may also be because children at this age (0-8 years) are less able to independently take advantage of remote- learning programs and tools…. [A] crisis-driven weakening of early childhood development and foundational learning in early primary school will mean lower learning trajectories for a whole generation (World Bank, 2020, p. 12). On other hand, countries that have the political and institutional factors in place to protect, and even improve, ECE services in the context of the pandemic may experience the advantages of better-prepared learners, which will contribute directly to the well-being of these children and resonate through increased human capital far into the future. 31 References Al-Hassan, O. (2018). Developments of early childhood education in Jordan. Early Years, 38(4), 351– 362. https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1080/09575146.2018.1512562 Al-Samarrai, S. (2020). The impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Education Financing. 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