Influenced by the condition of young children within its own country and by the pattern of international evidence about the value of Early Childhood Education and Development (ECED), the government of Indonesia has implemented policies and programs that prioritize the early years of children's...

This brief presents initial findings from an ongoing phone survey of families in Punjab, Pakistan designed to assess what is happening to girls’ elementary school education during COVID-19. The data used in this brief describe the experiences of 5,898 families in Punjab between August and...

This paper leverages quasi-experimental variation in increased access to basic formal education, introduced by a large-scale school construction program in Indonesia in the 1970s, to quantify the benefits to the children of women targeted by the program. Novel and rich data allow the analysis of...

School closures due to COVID-19 have left more than a billion students out of school. This paper presents the results of simulations considering three, five and seven months of school closure and different levels of mitigation effectiveness resulting in optimistic, intermediate and pessimistic...

This paper studies the sustainability of early childhood education centers established under a large-scale, donor-funded project in rural Indonesia. Analysis of quantitative and qualitative data shows that 86 percent of the centers continued to provide preschool services three years after...

This paper examines the longer-term impact of a project that expanded access to playgroup services in rural Indonesia. It compares the outcomes of two cohorts of children who were exposed to the same intervention at different points in time. One cohort was eligible to access playgroups during...

This study documents the results of a pilot study jointly undertaken by the World Bank and the Guangdong Department of Education to assess teaching practices in public primary and junior secondary schools using the Classroom Assessment Scoring System tool. The tool was used to conduct classroom...

This paper evaluates the early impact of introducing a performance component into Jakarta's school grant program on learning outcomes. Using administrative data, it applies difference-in-differences and regression discontinuity approaches to identify the impact of the grant by exploiting...

This paper examines gender gaps in cognitive and non-cognitive skills among a sample of more than 10,000 children between the ages of 6 and 9 in rural Indonesia. In terms of cognitive skills, the analysis finds evidence of gender gaps favoring girls at each age in test scores of language...

This paper presents evidence on the cost-effectiveness of early childhood education pathways in rural Indonesia. It documents the existence of substantial differences in school readiness between 6 to 9 year old children. Using detailed enrollment histories, it unpacks whether and how early...