Abstract
Under the broader strategy of advancing rural revitalization, improving the quality of early childhood education is of critical importance, as early childhood education represents a key starting point for breaking the cycle of intergenerational poverty. The One-Village-One-Preschool(OVOP) initiative launched by the China Development Research Foundation has already achieved broad coverage of OVOP centers in Leibo County, Sichuan Province. However, following the expansion of hardware access, educational quality—particularly teachers’ professional capacity—has emerged as a new bottleneck. Preliminary fieldwork suggests that teachers in OVOP centers currently face multiple challenges, including inadequate professional support, loosely organized teaching research activities, and a disconnect between theory and practice. This study focuses on children aged 5～6 years, teachers, and their families in OVOP centers in Leibo County. It aims to address key bottlenecks in improving the quality of rural preschool education by implementing an intervention centered on teacher support mechanisms, with the goal of identifying effective teacher support models for rural areas and evaluating their effects on educational quality and child development.
We plan to conduct a randomized intervention trial in approximately 120 OVOP centers in Leibo County, involving around 4,000 children aged 5～6 years and their teachers. In coordination with local policy contexts, different types and intensities of intervention groups, along with a control group, will be established. The intervention will mainly include online training, on-site supervision, emotional support, and expert guidance. The study will focus on examining how different forms and levels of teacher support affect teachers’ professional competencies and children’s developmental outcomes. The main outcome measures will include children’s academic performance after entering primary school, their socio-emotional development, as well as teachers’ sense of efficacy. Data will be collected from multiple sources, including children’s academic records, teacher questionnaires, parent questionnaires, principal questionnaires, and interview materials. Data collection will take place at multiple stages, including baseline, midline, endline, and follow-up, and both quantitative and qualitative methods will be used to systematically assess the effects of the intervention. By comparing treatment and control groups within a randomized intervention framework, this study aims to generate scientific evidence and policy-relevant insights for the development of preschool education support mechanisms in rural China.