Impact of mandatory preprimary on learning in a developing country

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Project Summary In 2002, Mexico announced an educational reform to make three years of preprimary mandatory prior to the initiation of primary school, phasing in this reform beginning in 2004. Preprimary is increasingly advocated as a key instrument for improving educational and life outcomes, yet most available evidence focuses on impacts on children in high-income countries. In poorer contexts, preprimary education, particularly in the most disadvantaged populations, could play even larger roles in improving life outcomes. Mexico’s preprimary reform provides a unique natural experiment to study the nationwide effects of preprimary in a low-and-middle-income country (LMIC) context and how these effects may vary by gender, indigeneity, disability and socio- economic status. Using nationwide longitudinal Mexican administrative data on 21 million students from the universe of Mexican School between 2006 and 2013, we provide novel evidence on the effects of this reform on learning outcomes of children in primary school approximately five years post preprimary reform. Aim 1 studies the impacts of mandatory preprimary on subsequent ages of primary school entry, grade retention, and achievement for children in primary school. Aim 2 studies the role of preprimary quality, including how preprimary quality changed under the mandatory preprimary reform and how varying preprimary quality affects education outcomes. Finally, Aim 3 studies how parental investments in children change in the medium run under the mandatory preprimary reform, including parental time with children and the time use of children. The study will use unusually rich nation-wide longitudinal data to provide novel evidence on the effects of preprimary on primary education in a major LMIC, studying the heterogeneity of such effects as well as related impacts on preprimary quality and parental investments. Our research contributes to an understudied area of research- the effectiveness of preprimary in LMIC settings and how preprimary can contribute to reducing inequality and improving learning.