Are Private Kindergartens Really Better? Examining Preschool Choices, Parental Resources, and Children's School Readiness in Ghana

Autor/inn/en	Pesando, Luca Maria; Wolf, Sharon; Behrman, Jere R.; Tsinigo, Edward
Titel	Are Private Kindergartens Really Better? Examining Preschool Choices, Parental Resources, and Children's School Readiness in Ghana
Quelle	In: Comparative Education Review, 64 (2020) 1, S.107-136 (30 Seiten)Infoseite zur Zeitschrift PDF als Volltext Verfügbarkeit
Sprache	englisch
Dokumenttyp	gedruckt; online; Zeitschriftenaufsatz
ISSN	0010-4086
DOI	10.1086/706775
Schlagwörter	Kindergarten; Private Education; Parent Attitudes; School Choice; Educational Quality; Correlation; Family Financial Resources; Attendance; Institutional Characteristics; School Readiness; Books; Family Environment; Homework; Parent Child Relationship; Prediction; Preschool Education; Literacy; Scores; Role; Academic Achievement; Foreign Countries; Ghana + Suchen Sie Ihr Suchwort? Privatunterricht; Elternverhalten; Choice of school; Schulwahl; Quality of education; Bildungsqualität; Korrelation; Anwesenheit; Readiness for school; School ability; Schulreife; Book; Buch; Monographie; Monografie; Familienmilieu; Hausaufgabe; Parents-child relationship; Parent-child-relation; Parent-child relationship; Eltern-Kind-Beziehung; Vorhersage; Pre-school education; Vorschulerziehung; Alphabetisierung; Schreib- und Lesefähigkeit; Rollen; Schulleistung; Ausland
Abstract	Low-cost private schools are expanding across sub-Saharan Africa and are often perceived by parents to be of better quality than public schools. This article assesses the interplay between kindergarten (or preschool) choice, household resources, and children's school readiness in Ghana. We examine how child, household, and school characteristics predict private versus public kindergarten attendance and whether household characteristics are associated with school readiness beyond preschool selection. Using a geospatial-identification strategy to account for observed and unobserved determinants of preschool choice, we find that parental investments--including number of books at home and caregiver help with homework--predict both private-preschool selection and start-of-year child outcomes beyond their influence on preschool choice. We take this evidence as suggesting that investments in children support learning beyond simply selecting the presumed best preschool type. We also find independent associations between attending private preschool and one-year changes in early literacy scores. The findings contribute knowledge to the literature on the recent expansion of preschool education in sub-Saharan Africa and globally and shed new light on the role of private-preschool attendance in early academic skill development. (As Provided).
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Erfasst von	ERIC (Education Resources Information Center), Washington, DC
Update	2022/1/01