A recent study by Renato Aguilar and Ruben Tansini published in the International Journal of Educational Development confirms that pre-school education has a positive impact on children’s school results. The authors note that as developing countries come ever closer to reaching universal primary school enrolment, their attention is now turning to interventions that will improve educational outcomes. There is a general understanding that pre-school education improves educational outcomes, but the authors state that there is little published empirical evidence in developing countries to support this.

The study’s starting point is that educational outcomes are potentially impacted by a range of factors, including pre-school attendance, parents’ education, mother’s education, whether the child is living with both parents, as well as various other socio-economic and cultural factors. The authors point out that studies to date have not adequately isolated the impact of pre-school education in comparison to the other factors, and it proceeds to fill this research gap.

The authors conclude that “attending preschool is by large the most important variable explaining the children’s performance in their first year at primary school.”

The impact of pre-school attendance impacts not only on performance in the first year, but continues to have a positive effect on the child’s performance in the longer term, for a period of six years after starting primary school. Other factors that impact in the longer term are the school’s performance; poor school performance negatively affects the child’s outcomes, but this can be compensated to some extent by the capability of the child’s home to supplement the school’s efforts and give attention to the child.

Thus, there is no doubt that South Africa is on the right track in rolling out universal Grade R. However, this research does indicate that universal Grade R must be accompanied by attention to other performance-enhancing factors such as quality schools and support for parents to better enable them to support their children.

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Read the study on the positive impact of pre-school education.