What matters in early childhood education? A natural experiment assessing children’s cognitive and social-emotional learning

This study addresses the impact of early childhood education in Pakistan and India. It is a natural experimental design where children of comparable age and household socio-economic characteristics are in groups of both those attending school and those not attending school. The study included 1,123 children (three to eight years old) in the household samples. In this chapter, we present the findings demonstrating the difference in children’s cognitive learning in relation to their school attendance status. We found that all children progressed in learning whether they attended school or not. However, there are gaps between the learning outcomes of children attending school or not, in terms of literacy and numeracy. Children who attend school have opportunities to learn more (of relevance to these measures) as compared to children who do not attend school. Children not attending school may not achieve the same level of attainment in literacy and numeracy because these skills are often taught through structured coaching, implementation of impactful learning approaches, and opportunities for regular practice, and feedback. The attainment gap widens as children grow up because children not in school usually do not have any other alternatives in catching up skills for literacy and numeracy.