Urban-rural achievement gap in low- and middle-income countries: The role of early childhood education

Abstract

In low- and middle-income countries, rural children rank below their urban counterparts on academic achievement. Given the importance of early childhood education (ECE) in promoting early learning, the urbanicity disparities may be partially explained by limited ECE availability in rural areas and the proliferation of private centers in urban areas. Using data from 6,000 economically disadvantaged children from India, Peru, and Vietnam, this study estimated the size of the differences in academic achievement between urban and rural children at ages five and eight after controlling by child and family characteristics. Additionally, we explored whether participation in public and private ECE mediated the relation between urbanicity and achievement. Results showed that family characteristics explained around half of the urbanicity-related gaps in achievement in Peru and Vietnam and completely explained these gaps in India. Additional results indicated that living urban areas was positively associated with academic achievement through increased attendance to ECE, with larger gains related to attendance to private centers. These results suggests that ECE access may be a promising pathway to close the urban-rural achievement gap. However, monitoring the quality of ECE settings serving low-income children -especially those in rural areas- is necessary to reap the full benefits of early education on child development.