Access to Preprimary Education and Progression in Primary School : Evidence from Rural Guatemala

Abstract

Evidence on the impacts of a large-scale expansion in public preprimary education is limited and mostly circumscribed to high and middle-income countries. This paper estimates the effects of such an expansion on progression in primary school in rural communities of Guatemala. Combining administrative and population census data in a difference-in-difference framework, the paper examines a large-scale construction program that increased the number of preprimaries from around 5,300 to 11,500 between 1998 and 2005. The results indicate that the program increased by 2.1 percentage points the fraction of students that progress adequately and attend sixth grade by age 12. These positive effects are heavily concentrated among girls.