Early Years Preschool Program Impact Evaluation 2019, Endline Survey - Bangladesh

Abstract
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This study aimed to (a) investigate the impacts of offering an additional year of pre-primary education in Bangladesh on child development outcomes (cognitive and social-emotional) and (b) examine the benefits relative to the costs of the program. The study also examined the mechanisms through which the Early Year Pre-School Program affected the outcomes of interest (e.g., children's school readiness) and the operational and community conditions for program implementation. This study provides evidence for the government of Bangladesh on how and how much the additional year of preschool benefits children, and at what cost. In addition to informing future policy in Bangladesh, this information may be useful for other countries considering similar programming. This survey provides endline findings for the evaluation and incorporates information from the baseline (2017) and midline (2018) surveys.

Geographic coverage
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District of Meherpur

Analysis unit
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Individuals, schools, and communities

Kind of data
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Sample survey data [ssd]

Sampling procedure
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We conducted a randomized controlled trial (RCT) of the EYPP to determine its impacts on children's learning and development. In 2016, we randomly assigned 100 schools in the Meherpur district of Bangladesh to either a treatment group receiving the EYPP (n = 50) or a no-program control group (n = 50). In October 2017, we conducted a census of the area around all 100 schools to identify children who lived within a 15-minute walk of the school and were in the target age range-that is, children expected to enroll in a typical government pre-primary in 2019 and enter Grade 1 in 2020. In the 50 treatment school catchment areas, children selected for the study were invited to participate in the EYPP at their local school during the 2018 school year and then would go on to government pre-primary as usual in 2019. In the 50 control school catchment areas, children selected for the study would be eligible to enroll in the government pre-primary as usual in 2019 but did not have the EYPP available to them the year before.

Sampling of Children:
The target sample for our study included all children in the census areas born from January 1, 2013 - December 31, 2013 (because on-time enrollment in government pre-primary school for these children would be in January 2019). In most cases (exact figure unknown but in a substantial majority), children's dates of birth were verified with the Extended Program of Immunization (EPI) card or a birth certificate. If these documents were unavailable (even after parents were encouraged to search), enumerators recorded what the parent reported as the child's date of birth. We identified a total of 1,986 children born in 2013. We did not exclude any age-eligible children based on any other criteria (for example, children with disabilities were included in our sample pool).

AIR agreed with the World Bank that we would sample an average of 20 children in each of the 100 study communities. Many communities had fewer than 20 eligible children. Because EYPP centers will typically enroll up to 25 children, for both treatment and control communities with 25 or fewer children, we included all eligible children in the study (with parental consent). In the 20 communities (14 treatment and 6 control) with over 25 children in the target age range, we drew a random subsample of 25 for inclusion in this sample.

For this longitudinal study, we collected baseline, midline, and endline data. The midline and endline samples included schools, children, and families enrolled in the study at baseline; we did not add any new participants after baseline. Of the 1,856 enrolled children and families, 1,801 (97%) participated at all three timepoints.

Mode of data collection
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Computer Assisted Personal Interview [capi]

Research instrument
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We administered the family questionnaire at baseline, midline, and endline. Its purpose was to gather information on the characteristics of the study children and their home environments and, at midline and endline, to determine whether and how the intervention affected the home learning environment. Nearly all items on this questionnaire were already used widely in Bangladesh as part of national household surveys. To administer this tool, enumerators read questions and response options aloud to respondents (parents or guardians of the study children). For some questions about family background, we asked the question only at baseline because the answers were unlikely to change across time and were unrelated to the intervention.

At each timepoint, we measured children's school readiness with the IDELA, which has been used widely in Bangladesh. A trained enumerator administered the assessment to children one on one. At endline, we also added subtasks from the Early Grade Reading Assessment (EGRA) and the Early Grade Mathematics Assessment (EGMA) as used in Bangladesh. Because the EGRA and EGMA were designed for children in Grade 1 and higher, we did not expect the study children to perform well, but wanted to ensure that we were prepared should we have ceiling issues with children's performance on the IDELA.

The endline parent questionnaire can be found under the 'Documentation' tab. To obtain a free copy of the IDELA questionnaire please go to https://idela-network.org/the-idela-tool/ and register.

Cleaning operations
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Data editing took place at a number of stages throughout the processing, including:
- Office editing and coding
- During data entry
- Structure checking and completeness
- Secondary editing
- Structural checking of STATA data files

Response rate
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97% (n = 1801 children)

摘要
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本研究旨在（a）探讨在孟加拉国额外提供一年学前教育对儿童发展成果（认知和社会情感）的影响，以及（b）检验该项目的收益与成本。研究还考察了早期幼儿教育项目如何影响相关成果（例如，儿童的入学准备情况）以及项目实施的运营和社区条件。本研究为孟加拉国政府提供了证据，说明了额外一年学前教育的益处及其成本，以及这些益处如何惠及儿童。除了为孟加拉国的未来政策提供信息外，这些信息对于考虑类似项目的其他国家可能也具有参考价值。本调查提供了评估的最终发现，并纳入了基线（2017年）和中线（2018年）调查的信息。
地理覆盖范围
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梅赫尔布尔区
分析单元
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个人、学校和社区
数据类型
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样本调查数据 [ssd]
抽样程序
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我们通过对早期幼儿教育项目（EYPP）进行随机对照试验（RCT），以确定其对儿童学习和发展的潜在影响。2016年，我们将孟加拉国梅赫尔布尔区的100所学校随机分配到接受EYPP的治疗组（n = 50）或无项目对照组（n = 50）。2017年10月，我们对所有100所学校周围的地区进行了人口普查，以确定居住在学校附近15分钟步行范围内的目标年龄范围内的儿童——即那些预计将在2019年进入政府学前学校并在2020年进入一年级的学生。在50所治疗学校的服务区域内，被选中的研究儿童被邀请在2018学年参加其所在学校的EYPP，然后在2019年按常规进入政府学前学校。在50所控制学校的服务区域内，被选中的研究儿童将有权按常规在2019年进入政府学前学校，但在前一年无法获得EYPP。
儿童的抽样：
我们的研究目标样本包括所有在2013年1月1日至2013年12月31日出生的基线地区的儿童（因为这些儿童在政府学前学校的按时入学将在2019年1月）。在大多数情况下（确切数字未知，但占大多数），儿童的出生日期通过与扩大免疫计划（EPI）卡或出生证明进行核实。如果这些文件不可用（即使经过鼓励家长寻找后），调查员记录了家长报告的儿童出生日期。我们总共确定了1986名2013年出生的儿童。我们没有根据任何其他标准（例如，残疾儿童包括在我们的样本库中）排除任何年龄合格的儿童。
与世界银行达成一致，我们在100个研究社区中平均抽取了每个社区20名儿童作为样本。许多社区中合格的儿童人数少于20人。由于EYPP中心通常最多可招收25名儿童，对于治疗组和对照组中儿童人数为25人或更少的社区，我们包括了所有合格的儿童进行研究（需家长同意）。在20个社区（14个治疗组和6个控制组）中，目标年龄范围内的儿童人数超过25人，我们从中随机抽取了25名儿童纳入样本。
对于这项纵向研究，我们收集了基线、中线和终线数据。中线和终线样本包括在基线时已登记在册的学校、儿童和家庭；基线之后我们没有添加任何新参与者。在1,856名登记的儿童和家庭中，1,801名（97%）在所有三个时间点都参与了研究。
数据收集方式
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计算机辅助个人访谈 [capi]
研究工具
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我们在基线、中线和终线阶段进行了家庭问卷调查，其目的是收集关于研究儿童及其家庭环境特征的信息，并在中线和终线阶段确定干预措施是否以及如何影响了家庭学习环境。问卷中的几乎所有项目在孟加拉国都已被广泛用作国家家庭调查的一部分。为了实施这一工具，调查员向受访者（研究儿童的家长或监护人）大声朗读问题和选项。对于一些关于家庭背景的问题，我们仅在基线时提问，因为答案不太可能随时间变化，且与干预措施无关。
在每一个时间点，我们使用IDELA（在孟加拉国已广泛使用）测量儿童的入学准备情况。一名经过培训的调查员对儿童进行一对一的评估。在终线时，我们还增加了孟加拉国早期年级阅读评估（EGRA）和早期年级数学评估（EGMA）的子任务。由于EGRA和EGMA是为一年级及以上的儿童设计的，我们预计研究儿童的表现可能不佳，但我们想确保如果我们在IDELA中遇到儿童表现天花板问题，我们已经做好了准备。
终线家长问卷可在“文档”选项卡下找到。要获取IDELA问卷的免费副本，请访问https://idela-network.org/the-idela-tool/并进行注册。
数据清理操作
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数据编辑在数据处理的不同阶段进行，包括：
- 办公室编辑和编码
- 数据录入过程中
- 结构检查和完整性
- 二次编辑
- STATA数据文件的结构检查
应答率
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97%（n = 1801名儿童）