TY  - RPRT
        AU  - Blimpo, Moussa
AU  - Carneiro, Pedro
AU  - Jervis, Pamela
AU  - Pugatch, Todd
        TI  - Improving Access and Quality in Early Childhood Development Programs: Experimental Evidence from the Gambia
        PY  - 2019/Feb/
        PB  - Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)
        CY  - Bonn
        T2  - IZA Discussion Paper
        IS  - 12163
        UR  - https://www.iza.org/publications/dp12163
        AB  - This paper studies two experiments of early childhood development programs in The Gambia: one increasing access to services, and another improving service quality. In the first experiment, new community-based early childhood development (ECD) centers were introduced to randomly chosen villages that had no pre-existing structured ECD services. In the second experiment, a randomly assigned subset of existing ECD centers received intensive provider training. We find no evidence that either intervention improved average levels of child development. Exploratory analysis suggests that, in fact, the first experiment, which increased access to relatively low quality ECD services, led to declines in child development among children from less disadvantaged households. Evidence supports that these households may have been steered away from better quality early childhood settings in their homes.
        KW  - randomized control trials
KW  - The Gambia
KW  - teacher training
KW  - cognitive stimulation
KW  - early childhood development
KW  - Malawi Developmental Assessment Tool
        ER  -