Long-term effects of China’s One Village One Preschool program on elementary academic achievement

Abstract One Village One Preschool (OVOP) project is a government-supported public intervention launched by the China Development Research Foundation, which provided disadvantaged rural and minority children in central and western rural China with access to early childhood education (ECE). OVOP has established about 2300 centers in ten provinces, enrolling over 170,000 3–6-year olds, free of charge for all. We analyzed longitudinal data collected from a sample of 1962 children in Ledu county of Qinghai Province (comparing OVOP attendees to children who had experienced no ECE, private ECE, or public ECE), using an inverse probability weighted longitudinal growth modeling approach to reduce selection bias in evaluating the effects of OVOP on children’s academic achievement during the first 5 years of elementary school. We found that children who attended OVOP centers attained higher scores in elementary grades than children who had received no ECE or who had attended private township ECE. However, OVOP children scored lower than children who went to well-resourced public township ECE centers, despite showing growth rates that were similar. Both OVOP and public ECE groups improved more quickly than children in the no-ECE or private-ECE group. We conclude that providing low-cost ECE to rural children in China has educational and social value.