All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten? Evidence from the Philippines

Abstract

Although there is broad agreement that investments in early childhood education are important, questions about the e↵ectiveness of di↵erent types of programs persist. We study the e↵ects of two distinct types of kindergarten programs in the Philippines: the Jumpstart kindergarten program, administered by a local faith-based NGO implemented between 2005 and 2017, and a government-sponsored kindergarten program that began to be introduced nation-wide in 2012. Exploiting the timing of the roll-out of these two programs, we find large e↵ects on primary school academic performance due to attending Jumpstart and much smaller e↵ects from attending the government kindergarten. We then examine mediating variables that may explain these di↵erential e↵ects. Although we find strong evidence of positive e↵ects on socioemotional outcomes such as grit, peer a liation, self-control, openness, and conscientiousness among children who attended Jumpstart, we find none of these mediating e↵ects among children who attended the government kindergarten. Our results confirm other research that highlights the importance of the development of socio-emotional skills and character formation in the preelementary grade levels not only as ends in themselves but as mediators to better academic performance.