Pre-school and early childhood development in rural Northern Ghana: A snapshot

High quality early childhood care and education (ECCE) are critical to children’s development and their success in adult life. Ghana has shown substantial commitment to improving ECCE, with one of the highest pre-school enrolment rates in Sub Saharan Africa. However despite this, significant barriers to improvements in ECCE remain, especially in rural areas.

As part of the impact evaluation of a pre-school intervention in rural Northern Ghana, the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) in partnership with Innovations for Poverty Action (IPA) has collected rich data on children, their families, pre-schools and teachers across two rural districts; Tolon (Northern Region), and Bongo (Upper East Region). These data cover information on 2407 households with children aged 3-5 (the “target child”), 151 Kindergarten teachers, and 80 schools. This brief highlights the main findings from these data.