Person:
Hasan, Amer
Author Name Variants
Fields of Specialization
Early childhood development,
Education,
Impact evaluation
Degrees
ORCID
External Links
Departments
Education Global Practice, South Asia Region
Externally Hosted Work
Contact Information
Last updated
January 31, 2023
Biography
Amer Hasan is a Senior Economist with the Education Global Practice, focusing on the South Asia Region (SAR). His most recent assignment before this was with the Human Capital Project team. He has also been a part of the East Asia and Pacific (EAP) Education team where he worked on Indonesia and China and served as Task Team Leader on both lending and analytical operations. He was the EAP regional focal point for Early Childhood as well as for Disability Inclusive Education. He co-led the 2018 flagship report on the quality of education in EAP entitled “Growing Smarter: Learning and Equitable Development in East Asia and Pacific.” Amer holds a PhD and Masters in Public Policy from the University of Chicago as well as a BA in History from Yale University.
Publication Search Results
1 - 10 of 15
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Publication
Early Childhood Education and Development in Poor Villages of Indonesia : Strong Foundations, Later Success
(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2013-06-11)Influenced by the condition of young children within its own country and by the pattern of international evidence about the value of Early Childhood Education and Development (ECED), the government of Indonesia has implemented policies and programs that prioritize the early years of children's lives. The first critical step was taken in 2001, when a new directorate dedicated to early childhood was established within the Ministry of Education and Culture. The second critical step was taken when early childhood education was included in a succession of key policy documents-the National Education System Law No. 20 in 2003 and the Ministry of Education and Culture's Strategic Plan (Rencana Strategis or Renstra) in 2004. ECED services are privately provided in multiple formats intended to cater to distinct age groups, and several different government ministries regulate the services. These arrangements underscore the continuing challenges in coordinating services and ensuring high quality across service providers. This book uses Indonesian data to answer five questions with significance for research, policy, and practice within and beyond Indonesia: (1) shat does global evidence tell us about the importance of ECED, and what policies and programs has Indonesia implemented to promote ECED?; (2) what is the pattern of development among young children in poor villages in Indonesia, and how is that development linked with their families' characteristics and the ECED services typically available to them?; (3) what were the processes and challenges of implementing a community-driven ECED project across 50 poor districts in Indonesia?; (4) what can be learned from the short-term results of a randomized evaluation of the project's impact on children s development?; and (5) what insights can be derived from this body of research to inform future policies and practices in Indonesia and beyond? With support from the World Bank and other development partners, the government has provided new early childhood services in 6,000 poor communities across 50 districts in the country. The lessons from this experience are focused in this book. -
Publication
The Impact of Early Childhood Education on Early Achievement Gaps : Evidence from the Indonesia Early Childhood Education and Development Project
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2014-02)This paper assesses whether the Indonesia Early Childhood Education and Development project had an impact on early achievement gaps as measured by an array of child development outcomes and enrollment. The analysis is based on longitudinal data collected in 2009 and 2010 on approximately 3,000 four-year-old children residing in 310 villages located in nine districts across Indonesia. The study begins by documenting the intent-to-treat impact of the project. It then compares the achievement gaps between richer and poorer children living in project villages with those of richer and poorer children living in non-project villages. There is clear evidence that in project villages, the achievement gap between richer and poorer children decreased on many dimensions. By contrast, in non-project villages, this gap either increased or stayed constant. Given Indonesia's interest in increasing access to early childhood services for all children, and the need to ensure more efficient spending on education, the paper discusses how three existing policies and programs could be leveraged to ensure that Indonesia's vision for holistic, integrated early childhood services becomes a reality. The lessons from Indonesia's experience apply more broadly to countries seeking to reduce early achievement gaps and expand access to pre-primary education. -
Publication
The Impact of Expanding Access to Early Childhood Services in Rural Indonesia: Evidence from Two Cohorts of Children
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2015-07)This paper uses three waves of longitudinal data to examine the impact of expanding access to preschool services in rural areas of Indonesia on two cohorts of children. One cohort was children aged 4 at the start of the project and was immediately eligible for project-provided services when they began operation in 2009. The other cohort was children aged 1 at the start of the project and became eligible for project-provided services two years later. The paper presents intent-to-treat estimates of impact in the short term (first year of the project) and medium term (three years after the project started), using experimental and quasi-experimental methods. For the cohort of 4-year-olds, while the magnitude of the enrollment impact is similar across children from different backgrounds, the impact on child outcomes is larger for children from more disadvantaged backgrounds in the short and medium terms. However, for this cohort of children, it seems that project-provided playgroups encouraged substitution away from existing kindergartens, suggesting that future interventions should incorporate such possibilities into their design. For the average child in the younger cohort, the project led to improvements in physical health and well-being as well as language and cognitive development. For this cohort, there is little evidence of differential impact. This can be explained by the fact that children who enrolled soon after the centers opened (the older cohort) were generally poorer, compared with children who enrolled later (the younger cohort). This may be because of fee increases in project centers as project funding ended. -
Publication
Early Childhood Education and Development in Indonesia: An Assessment of Policies Using SABER
(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2015-08-11)Since the early 2000s, Indonesia has taken a number of steps to prioritize early childhood development – ranging from the inclusion of Early Childhood Development (ECD) in the National Education System Law No. 20 in 2003 to a Presidential Declaration on Holistic and Integrated ECD and the launch of the country’s first ever ECD Census in 2011. These policy milestones have occurred in parallel with sustained progress on outcomes included in the Millennium Development Goals, including for child malnutrition, child mortality and universal basic education. Additional progress could be achieved by strengthening ECD policies further. This report presents findings from an assessment of ECD policies and programs in Indonesia based on two World Bank tools: the ECD module of the Systems Approach for Better Education Results (SABER) and a guide on essential interventions for investing in young children. Results from the application of both tools to Indonesia are used to suggest a number of policy options for consideration. -
Publication
Evaluating a Community-Based Early Childhood Education and Development Program in Indonesia: Study Protocol for a Pragmatic Cluster Randomized Controlled Trial with Supplementary Matched Control Group
(BioMed Central, 2013-08-16)This paper presents the study protocol for a pragmatic cluster randomized controlled trial (RCT) with a supplementary matched control group. The aim of the trial is to evaluate a community-based early education and development program launched by the Government of Indonesia. The program was developed in collaboration with the World Bank with a total budget of US$127.7 million, and targets an estimated 738,000 children aged 0 to 6 years living in approximately 6,000 poor communities. The aim of the program is to increase access to early childhood services with the secondary aim of improving school readiness. -
Publication
The Impact of Early Childhood Education on Early Achievement Gaps in Indonesia
(Taylor and Francis, 2015-09-16)This study assesses whether the Indonesia Early Childhood Education and Development (ECED) project had an impact on early achievement gaps as measured by an array of child development outcomes and enrolment. First, using a fixed-effects model with a difference-in-difference estimator that compares children in project villages with those in non-project villages, we find that the positive impacts are concentrated among poor children. Second, extending our fixed-effects model, we also find that the achievement gap between richer and poorer children in project villages decreased on many dimensions compared with the achievement gap in non-project villages. -
Publication
The Role of Preschool Quality in Promoting Child Development: Evidence from Rural Indonesia
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2016-01)This paper reports on the quality of early childhood education in rural Indonesia. On average, the paper finds that centers created under the Indonesia Early Childhood Education and Development Project provide higher quality services than other types of preschools, as measured by a comprehensive instrument of preschool quality based on direct observation of classrooms in session (the Early Childhood Environment Rating Scale-Revised). The paper also examines the relationship between preschool quality and childrens early development using three commonly applied measures of quality: (i) the Early Childhood Environment Rating Scale-Revised; (ii) teacher characteristics; and (iii) structural characteristics of preschool services, such as their size and amount of class time. First, correcting for measurement error using an instrumental variables approach, the findings suggest that preschool quality is a significant and meaningful positive predictor of childrens developmental outcomes. Second, the findings for teacher characteristics are mixed, suggesting that policies focused solely on hiring teachers based on experience and training will be insufficient to improve childrens learning. Instead, policies must address the quality of professional development activities for teachers. Third, the amount of class time spent in early childhood programs is a significant positive predictor of children’s developmental outcomes. This suggests that in rural Indonesia—where early childhood programs are relatively low dose—children are likely to benefit from attending longer hours of preschool, either playgroups or kindergartens. Lastly, the paper compares items in the Early Childhood Environment Rating Scale-Revised with Indonesias national minimum service standards for early childhood education and development, and finds that the relationship between this alternative, context-appropriate measure of preschool quality and children’s development outcomes strongly corroborates the earlier conclusions. -
Publication
Contrasting Experiences: Understanding the Longer-Term Impact of Improving Access to Preschool Education in Rural Indonesia
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2019-11)This paper examines the longer-term impact of a project that expanded access to playgroup services in rural Indonesia. It compares the outcomes of two cohorts of children who were exposed to the same intervention at different points in time. One cohort was eligible to access playgroups during the first year of a five-year project cycle, beginning at age four. The other cohort became eligible to access these services during the third year, beginning at age three. The younger cohort was more likely to be exposed to playgroups for longer and at age-appropriate times relative to the older cohort. The paper finds that enrollment rates and enrollment duration in preprimary education increased for both cohorts, but the enrollment effects were larger for the younger cohort. In terms of child development outcomes, there were short term effects at age five that did not last until age eight, for both cohorts. The data reveal that the younger cohort had substantially higher test scores during the early grades of primary school, relative to the older cohort. To unpack why the two cohorts experienced different longer-term outcomes, the paper provides evidence of changes that transpired in the operating conditions of the playgroups over time. -
Publication
Built to Last: Sustainability of Early Childhood Education Services in Rural Indonesia
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2019-11)This paper studies the sustainability of early childhood education centers established under a large-scale, donor-funded project in rural Indonesia. Analysis of quantitative and qualitative data shows that 86 percent of the centers continued to provide preschool services three years after project funding ended. Centers balanced the reduction in funding by introducing student fees. The paper estimates a series of logistic regression models to predict center sustainability. Centers that increased their share of expenditures on teacher salaries during the project were significantly more likely to remain open. Often this was made possible by centers altering their mix of supplementary services provided. Centers that provided higher quality care, had more complementary services in the area, and had more parental involvement were significantly more likely to be sustained after donor funding ended. In contrast, centers with more substitute services in the area were less likely to be sustained. There is no evidence to suggest that distance to the village center or nearest neighboring center was a major factor for sustainability. There is also no evidence to suggest that, while they were operating, closed centers catered to children from different wealth backgrounds than those that remained open. These results point to actionable lessons for the design and sustainability of future development projects. -
Publication
Contrasting Experiences: Understanding the Longer-Term Impact of Improving Access to Pre-Primary Education in Rural Indonesia
(Taylor and Francis, 2021-02-02)This paper examines the child development outcomes of two cohorts of children who were exposed to the same intervention at different points in time. One cohort was eligible to access playgroups during the first year of a five-year project cycle, beginning at age four. The other cohort became eligible to access these services during the third year of a five-year project cycle, beginning at age three. The younger cohort was more likely to be exposed to playgroups for longer and at more age-appropriate times relative to the older cohort. The paper finds that enrollment rates and enrollment duration in preprimary education increased for both cohorts, but the enrollment effects were larger for the younger cohort. In terms of child development outcomes, there were short-term effects at age five that did not last until age eight, for both cohorts. Moreover, the younger cohort had substantially higher test scores during the early grades of primary school, relative to the older cohort. We document the extent to which program impacts can vary as a result of differences in project implementation.