Publication: Improving Preschool Provision and Encouraging Demand: Evidence from a Large-Scale Construction Program
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2020-10
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2020-10-08
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This paper studies the impact of a preschool construction program and of two demand-side interventions in Cambodia. Within this context where other preschools are available, impacts are likely to differ between children who would have been enrolled in a preexisting preschool and those who would have stayed at home, with larger expected gains for the latter. The construction program caused enrollment to increase but demand-side interventions did not. After one year, the study measures intent-to-treat impacts on cognitive (0.04 standard deviations) and socio-emotional development (0.07 SD). The analysis also shows that the effect on children who would have stayed at home can be bounded (between 0.14 SD and 0.45 SD). With further assumptions these bounds can be tightened (0.14 SD – 0.35 SD) and under heavier assumptions, the study estimates this effect to be 0.19 SD, while the effect on children who would have benefited from another preschool is small and insignificant. These results are consistent with measures of preschool quality which imply that the newly constructed schooled only significantly improved infrastructure quality and not process quality. After two years of program implementation, most impacts become insignificant suggesting that the advantage provided by preschool quickly vanished, specifically once children enrolled in primary school.
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“Berlinski, Samuel; Ferreyra, Maria Marta; Flabbi, Luca; Martin, Juan David. 2020. Improving Preschool Provision and Encouraging Demand: Evidence from a Large-Scale Construction Program. Policy Research Working Paper;No. 9427. © World Bank. http://hdl.handle.net/10986/34598 License: CC BY 3.0 IGO.”
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