Improving Preschool Provision and Encouraging Demand : Heterogeneous Impacts of a Large-Scale Program

This paper examines impacts of a large-scale program that increased the supply and quality of community preschools in Cambodia. Construction of preschools was paired with two demand-side interventions designed to stimulate additional enrollment. The construction caused an increase in enrollment but demand-side interventions did not. After one year, impacts on cognitive (0.04 standard deviations) and socio-emotional development (0.09 standard deviations) are observed, consistent with moderate impacts on children without previous access to any preschool. Persistent effects on children from the wealthiest quartile are observed two years after the program started. We provide evidence that the program had large impacts on the quality of preschool infrastructure but only limited impacts on the quality of educational processes. Our results indicate that, in this context, less disadvantaged families were better able to take advantage of the preschools by providing a home environment that complemented the education received at preschool. Our results also suggest that improving the quality of educational processes might be needed to foster the development of disadvantaged children