Scalable Strategies to Improve Pre-school Quality: Experimental Impacts of the ‘Quality Preschool for Ghana’ Intervention and Implications for System-level Reform

• In Event: 2-166 - Effective Scalable Models for Interventions to Improve Center-based Care and Education for Preschool-Age Children in LMICs: Progress and Future Directions

Integrative Statement

Estimates suggest that 250 million children under 5 years of age in developing countries are at risk of not reaching their developmental potential, as indicated by stunting and living in extreme poverty (Lu, Black & Richter, 2016). Compared to other regions, sub-Saharan Africa has the highest prevalence of children at risk, with 38% of the 143 million children under age 5 stunted and 50% living in extreme poverty (Lu et al., 2016). Early childhood education (ECE) is one approach to support ECD, and estimates suggest that the benefit-cost ratio of increasing ECE enrolments in developing countries are considerable (Engle et al., 2011). High-quality ECE can improve early learning skills, which are crucial for children’s transition to school (Blair, 2002; Yoshikawa et al., 2013). However, if ECE is not of sufficient quality, its impacts will be limited. Efforts to improve and sustain ECE quality at scale in developing countries are needed.
The government of Ghana expanded to 2 years of universal pre-primary education in 2007 [kindergarten (KG) 1 for 4-year-olds, KG2 for 5-year-olds], and the country has among the highest ECE enrolment rates in Africa (UNESCO, 2015). We assessed impacts on teacher professional well-being, classroom quality, and children’s school readiness after one and two years of a school-year-long teacher professional-development program for public and private kindergartens in the Greater Accra Region, Ghana. This cluster-randomized trial included 240 schools (teachers N = 444; children N = 3,345, Mage = 5.2) randomly assigned to: teacher training (TT), teacher training plus parent awareness training (TTPA), and control. The program incorporated training workshops and in-classroom coaching.
After one year, we found moderate impacts on some dimensions of teacher professional well-being (reduced burnout and reduced turnover in TT and TTPA), classroom quality (increased support for children’s expression in TT and TTPA, emotional support and behavior management in TT; e.s. = 0.52-0.65), and improved school readiness (in TT; e.s. = 0.16), including numeracy, literacy, and social-emotional development. One year after program implementation ended, results show sustained impacts of teacher-training on children’s school readiness in both private and public schools—specifically on social-emotional development (e.s. = 0.13), consistent with midline, as well as marginally significant impacts on executive function (e.s. = 0.11). Persistent negative effects of teacher training plus parental-awareness meetings varied by the literacy status of the male parent such that negative impacts were concentrated in children in households with non-literate male heads.
This is among the first studies to assess impacts of preschool teacher training on classroom quality and multiple domains of children’s school readiness in West Africa. The inclusion of private and public sector schools, and practical approaches to in-service teacher-training and evaluation, provide important implications.

Authors

• Sharon Wolf, University of Pennsylvania
  Presenting Author

• Lawrence J. Aber, New York University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Jere R. Behrman, University of Pennsylvania
  Non-Presenting Author