Preschool subsidies and cash transfers have long-term health benefits for children

school_Nigeria_pexels (Armstrong Opulency)
Access to preschool education has been shown to positively affect children’s development in high and middle-income countries, but we have little evidence from low-income settings, researchers write in VoxDev. Photo: pexels (Armstrong Opulency)
Opinion Piece

24 January 2025 10:33

Preschool subsidies and cash transfers have long-term health benefits for children

Subsidised access to full-day preschools in Uganda had long-term positive effects on children’s anthropometrics but not their learning outcomes. Cash transfers of a similar value as the preschool subsidy had a similar impact.

Access to preschool education has been shown to positively affect children’s development in high and middle-income countries (e.g. Attanasio et al. 2022, Duncan et al. 2023, Engle et al. 2011, van Huizen and Plantenga 2018), but we have little evidence from low-income settings. Studies that evaluate the effect of preschool programmes in low-income contexts are few and mainly focused on short-term effects (e.g. Ajayi et al. 2022, Bietenbeck et al. 2019, Bjorvatn et al. Forthcoming, Dean and Jayachandran 2020, Donald et al. 2024).

Read the full article on VoxDev

  • Kjetil Bjorvatn (NHH)
  • Vincent Somville (CMI and NHH)
  • Arne Nasgowitz (Centre for Applied Research NHH)
  • Denise Ferris (BRAC Independent Evaluation and Research Cell)
  • Lore Vandewalle (KU Leuven)
  • Selim Gulesci (Trinity College Dublin)

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