Preprimary education and early childhood development: Evidence from government schools in rural Kenya
研究发现肯尼亚农村儿童若住在小学附近，更可能在3岁而非4岁入学，且3岁时词汇能力更强，但这一优势在更大年龄时消失。
We provide evidence on the link between enrollment in public preschool and child vocabulary, a critical precursor to early literacy. We measure early childhood development among both in-school and out-of-school children in Kenya, allowing us to examine the association between preschool enrollment and cognitive outcomes. Children in our sample are more likely to start school at age three rather than age four if they live within a few hundred meters of the nearest primary school. Three-year-olds living closer to the school also have stronger vocabulary skills, though a similar pattern does not exist among older children. Using proximity to school as an instrument for preprimary enrollment, we find that preprimary enrollment raises mother tongue receptive vocabulary by more than one standard deviation at age three, but does not impact vocabulary at later ages. • We find evidence linking public preschool enrollment to child vocabulary in Kenya. • Children enroll in preschool younger if they live very near the school. • 3-year-olds living near schools have larger vocabularies than do those further away. • IV estimates show that preschool improves mother tongue vocabulary. • However, these short-term gains appear not to persist three years later.