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Increasing Early Childhood Care and Development Through Community Preschools in Cambodia: Evaluating the Impacts

Last registered on April 22, 2016

Pre-Trial

Trial Information

General Information

Title
Increasing Early Childhood Care and Development Through Community Preschools in Cambodia: Evaluating the Impacts
RCT ID
AEARCTR-0001045
Initial registration date
April 22, 2016

Initial registration date is when the trial was registered.

It corresponds to when the registration was submitted to the Registry to be reviewed for publication.

First published
April 22, 2016, 3:27 AM EDT

First published corresponds to when the trial was first made public on the Registry after being reviewed.

Locations

Region

Primary Investigator

Affiliation
The World Bank

Other Primary Investigator(s)

PI Affiliation
University of Mannhein

Additional Trial Information

Status
In development
Start date
2016-05-01
End date
2018-07-31
Secondary IDs
Abstract
The objectives of this intervention are to expand access to quality Early Childhood Education (ECE) for 3-5 year olds (through construction of facilities, provision of materials, training of staff), as well as to build the demand for Early Childhood Care and Development ECCD services among families from disadvantaged backgrounds. Parent education is used to maximize the impact of ECCD services on child cognitive and psychosocial development—with a focus on (primary) school readiness. The study aims to find out whether the provision of simple community preschools increases enrolment and retention rates in ECCD services. Particularly with an eye towards primary school readiness, effects on the cognitive and socio-emotional development of young children will be measured. Further, it will be tested whether complementary demand-side interventions increase enrollment, especially among the poorest households, and if demand-side interventions have an effect on the impact of the intervention.
External Link(s)

Registration Citation

Citation
Bouguen, Adrien and Deon Filmer. 2016. "Increasing Early Childhood Care and Development Through Community Preschools in Cambodia: Evaluating the Impacts." AEA RCT Registry. April 22. https://doi.org/10.1257/rct.1045-1.0
Former Citation
Bouguen, Adrien and Deon Filmer. 2016. "Increasing Early Childhood Care and Development Through Community Preschools in Cambodia: Evaluating the Impacts." AEA RCT Registry. April 22. https://www.socialscienceregistry.org/trials/1045/history/7861
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Experimental Details

Interventions

Intervention(s)
The objectives of the ECCD interventions of this project are to assist the recipient to expand access to quality Early Childhood Education (ECE) for 3-5 year olds (through construction of facilities, provision of materials, training of staff), as well as to build the demand for ECCD services among families from disadvantaged backgrounds, along with parent education to maximize the impact of ECCD services on child cognitive and psychosocial development—with a focus on (primary) school readiness.

See Experimental Design for more details.
Intervention Start Date
2016-08-01
Intervention End Date
2018-07-31

Primary Outcomes

Primary Outcomes (end points)
-preschool enrolment and retention rates in ECCD services
-primary school readiness
-impact of cognitive and socio-emotional development of 4-6 year olds (2-4 at baseline), also heterogeneity of impact
-effect of demand-side interventions on enrollment rates
-direct effect of demand-side interventions on the impact of the intervention.
Primary Outcomes (explanation)

Secondary Outcomes

Secondary Outcomes (end points)
Secondary Outcomes (explanation)

Experimental Design

Experimental Design
Treatment group 1 (T1):
Community Pre-Schools (CPS) are established which is the main treatment. CPSs provide center-based preschool activities for children ages 3 to 5, for two to three hours a day, five days a week. The project involves constructing a simple structure for the CPS (a “center”), providing teaching and learning materials to start up the new CPS, and providing training for the CPS teachers.

Treatment group 2 (T2):
For a second treatment group, CPS are established, stocked and staffed as in the same way as in group 1. However, this treatment arm will include two additional demand-side interventions: (i) Door-to-Door visits and (ii) Home Based Care Program (HBCP).
(i) The objective of Door-to-Door visits is to stimulate demand for ECCD programs, by speaking directly to individual families, mothers and caregivers to sensitize them to child development and the value of pre-school education. An additional aim is to help interested parents figure out how and where to enroll their children in existing ECCD programs. This is a newly conceptualized intervention, building on the international evidence and anthropological studies of Cambodia regarding the effectiveness of community mobilization.
(ii) HBCP aims to enhance the effect of ECCD programs. HBCP are set in the villages where CPS are run and target parents of children aged 0 to 5. These programs are run by local “core parents”, who receive initial and ongoing training from the ECE Department of MoEYS at the Provincial and District levels. The responsibility of “core parents” is to promote enrolment of children ages 3 to 5 to pre-schools (CPS), as well as to lead monthly meetings with parents and children ages 0 to 5 from the village to share information on parenting including nutrition, language development, and early stimulation and discuss developmentally appropriate activities that mothers can carry on at home with their children.
Experimental Design Details
Randomization Method
Randomization of treatment was stratified by provinces and implemented using Stata software on office computer.
Randomization Unit
Randomization has been implemented to designate 58 schools to serve as control, 120 schools in T1 and 127 in T2. Randomization was stratified at the province level to avoid potential of over-representation of particular arms of the study in particular provinces. In villages with more than 26 eligible households, 26 households will be randomly drawn from a predefined list.
Was the treatment clustered?
Yes

Experiment Characteristics

Sample size: planned number of clusters
305 villages
Sample size: planned number of observations
Around 8000 children, caregiver and household surveys each (max. 26 households per village, sometimes there will be less than 26 eligible households in a village or households with more than 1 eligible kid)
Sample size (or number of clusters) by treatment arms
120 villages (treatment group 1), 127 villages (treatment group 2), 58 villages (control)
Minimum detectable effect size for main outcomes (accounting for sample design and clustering)
IRB

Institutional Review Boards (IRBs)

IRB Name
IRB Paris School of Economics
IRB Approval Date
2016-04-14
IRB Approval Number
2016-003

Post-Trial

Post Trial Information

Study Withdrawal

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Intervention

Is the intervention completed?
No
Data Collection Complete
Data Publication

Data Publication

Is public data available?
No

Program Files

Program Files
Reports, Papers & Other Materials

Relevant Paper(s)

Reports & Other Materials