The Impact of Expanding Access to Early Childhood Services in Rural Indonesia : Evidence from Two Cohorts of Children

Brinkman, Sally Anne ; Hasan, Amer ; Jung, Haeil ; Kinnell, Angela ; Pradhan, Menno

World Bank, Washington, DC

关键词: SKILLS;    COMMUNITIES;    CAREGIVERS;    RISKS;    VILLAGES;   

DOI  :  10.1596/1813-9450-7372
RP-ID  :  WPS7372

学科分类：社会科学、人文和艺术（综合）

来源: World Bank Open Knowledge Repository

【 摘 要 】

This paper uses three waves oflongitudinal data to examine the impact of expanding accessto preschool services in rural areas of Indonesia on twocohorts of children. One cohort was children aged 4 at thestart of the project and was immediately eligible forproject-provided services when they began operation in 2009.The other cohort was children aged 1 at the start of theproject and became eligible for project-provided servicestwo years later. The paper presents intent-to-treatestimates of impact in the short term (first year of theproject) and medium term (three years after the projectstarted), using experimental and quasi-experimental methods.For the cohort of 4-year-olds, while the magnitude of theenrollment impact is similar across children from differentbackgrounds, the impact on child outcomes is larger forchildren from more disadvantaged backgrounds in the shortand medium terms. However, for this cohort of children, itseems that project-provided playgroups encouragedsubstitution away from existing kindergartens, suggestingthat future interventions should incorporate suchpossibilities into their design. For the average child inthe younger cohort, the project led to improvements inphysical health and well-being as well as language andcognitive development. For this cohort, there is littleevidence of differential impact. This can be explained bythe fact that children who enrolled soon after the centersopened (the older cohort) were generally poorer, comparedwith children who enrolled later (the younger cohort). Thismay be because of fee increases in project centers asproject funding ended.