Examining Early Childhood Education Across Six South-East Asian Countries

• In Event: Integrated approaches in ECD

Proposal

Research context and study contribution:

Countries in the South-East Asian region vary on the basis of demography, socio-cultural factors, and political systems. This diversity reflects in the governments’ commitment to early childhood services in the region (Rao and Sun, 2010). Although there is an intention to provide early childhood education for three or four years, current funding is not available to governments to ensure this type of access. Under these conditions, a small set of countries have focused their efforts on ensuring universal provision of the last year of pre-primary education, right before the start of primary school.
Overall, 81% of children in the South-East Asia are enrolled in pre-primary education, and the region as a whole is relatively close to universal pre-primary (UNICEF, 2019). However, it is crucial to go beyond this overarching statistic to examine the variations of early childhood education access, provision, and quality across countries in the region. The early childhood education landscape in countries of the EAP region is diverse, children now attend school-based, center-based, community-based, or home-based early education programs. In expanding provision of pre-primary education, there are concerns that quantity may have been prioritized over less favorable teacher-child ratios, less inclusive programs, and consequently, a decrease in quality of pre-primary education (Rao and Sun, 2010). For instance, inequalities exist in pre-primary enrollment based on family socio-economic status and household wealth, with children from more advantaged backgrounds being more likely to be enrolled than others.
In this study, I examine the status of and variations in the broad construct of early childhood education in six South-East Asian countries of Cambodia, Lao PDR, Myanmar, Malaysia, Philippines, and Vietnam. My main research questions for this paper are:
1. How does early childhood learning and pre-primary education vary across and between the six South-East Asian countries?
2. What factors determine completion of pre-primary education in the six countries?
3. What is the association between pre-primary education and future academic learning in the six countries?
Study findings contribute towards the global early childhood education discourse literature on low- and middle-income countries. Also, a deeper understanding of gaps in early childhood access and quality will have substantial policy implications for researchers and policy-makers. Specifically, findings from my study can inform policy and program attention on children, particularly those that are marginalized from policy debates.

Theoretical framework:

Bronfenbrenner’s (1994) bioecological model is the most suitable theoretical framework to navigate the multifaceted early learning of children. According to Bronfenbrenner, even if a person is not part of a setting at that particular moment, the nature of the environment around the setting can have an extreme impact on the behavior and development of the individual within that setting. The model is centered around five ecological systems that an individual interacts with - micro, meso, exo, macro and chrono systems. The microsystem is an individual’s human relationships and immediate surroundings; the mesosystem forms the interactions between the components of the microsystem. The exosystem contains elements of the microsystem which do not affect the individual directly, but may do so indirectly, whereas the macrosystem is made up of cultural and societal beliefs that influence an individual’s development. Lastly, the chronosystem focuses on the interactions between the various ecosystems and their effects over one another across time.

Data methodology and analysis:

For my analysis, I use the cross-sectional, comparable national assessment data from the South-East Asia Primary Learning Metrics (SEA-PLM) program which is designed by and for countries in South-East Asia. SEA-PLM data allows comparisons within and across countries of the region on the critical issues of pre-primary education and early learning. It includes extensive data on children’s characteristics, parental engagement, school environments, as well as their learning performance. SEA-PLM also collects data on schools, principals, teachers, and parents. For my own analysis, I use multivariate regression methods to answer the three research questions. The process of performing a regression allows me to explain the relationship between the independent variable(s) and the outcome variable, the two differ depending on the research question. To measure pre-primary education, I consider several variables: whether pre-primary education is compulsory and/or free, the pre-primary education provider, age of entry & duration of pre-primary education, pre-primary attendance, basic literacy and numeracy skills acquired at the end of pre-primary education. I also consider children’s socio-economic characteristics (household wealth, parental education, and household location), children’s grade 5 academic outcomes.

Preliminary findings:

In presenting my descriptive results, I will discuss three factors that emerge as being crucial in the data for determining pre-primary education and children’s basic skills: children’s sex, household wealth, and household location (urban versus rural). In terms of multivariate analysis, overall, in the six study countries, pre-primary attendance and basic literacy and numeracy skills are positively correlated to later academic outcomes (at the 0.1% level of statistical significance), namely reading, math and writing test scores. Based on statistical significance levels, these positive associations between pre-primary attendance and later academic outcomes, and later academic outcomes are stronger and more apparent in Malaysia, Philippines, and Vietnam, as compared to the other three countries. These patterns are true for reading, math, and writing scores. In Cambodia, pre-primary attendance positively correlates to all three types of academic outcomes. In Laos, early learning is positively correlated only with writing scores. Finally, in Myanmar, pre-primary attendance is negatively related to math scores.

Author

• Vanika Grover, University of Virginia