Parents in the classroom: strengthening government capacity to deliver early childhood education

Preschool enrollment has expanded rapidly in low-income countries, but quality has lagged, and evidence on how governments can improve it remains limited. We evaluate Lively Minds, a scalable early childhood program adopted and implemented by Ghana’s Ministry of Education that trains community mothers to deliver structured, play-based activities in public preschools and support children’s learning at home. Using a cluster randomized controlled trial in 80 rural preschools, we find that the program increases cognitive development by 0.12 standard deviations (SD) and reduces problem behaviors by 0.10 SD on average. Cognitive gains are similar for children of participating and non-participating mothers, whereas behavioral improvements are concentrated among children of participating mothers. Consistent with this pattern, only participating mothers improve their knowledge of child development and engage in more developmentally supportive interactions with their children at home. These findings suggest that engaging parents - even those with limited formal education — can generate additional benefits beyond those of approaches that rely solely on teachers and paraprofessionals. A cost-benefit analysis indicates that the program’s private benefits substantially exceed its costs, with no adverse effects on mothers’ well-being.