This article has been reviewed according to Science X's editorial process and policies. Editors have highlighted the following attributes while ensuring the content's credibility: The first five years of life lay an important foundation for children's future schooling, health and earnings. Yet over 77% of children in sub-Saharan Africa don't have access to early childhood care and education.
This places them at risk of not reaching their development potential. In response, governments across Africa are increasingly committing to expanding enrollment in pre-primary school. But research suggests that expanding enrollment is not enough.
It's also important to create healthy, nurturing learning environments that help prepare children for primary school. Economists like us have an interest in this because we want to be able to help design effective and scalable early childhood education programs and policies. We need to know: We set out to answer these questions by reviewing the most recent evidence available on pre-primary education programs in low- and middle-income African countries.
Our research published in the Journal of African Economies examined why some pre-primary education programs may be more successful than others. Our study identified and reviewed the findings from six programs carried out by local governments in The Gambia, Ghana, Kenya, Malawi and Mozambique. Most were in poor, rural and remote areas.
We found that most programs focused on play-based learning. And, on average, they generated positive effects on children's development. The research also suggests that programs that offer support for parents may generate the largest impacts on children's development outcomes.
This points to the need for program planners to recruit high-quality teachers and personnel who can effectively engage with both children and parents. To address our research questions, we began by searching for studies on the effects of pre-primary education programs in low- and middle-income countries in Africa. We only reviewed studies with large enough populations to be meaningful and that used rigorous ways of evaluating the results.
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