Should LMICs Build Preschools or Improve Primary Education? Long-Term Evidence from Côte d’Ivoire

In 2017, we partnered with the Government of Côte d’Ivoire to implement an RCT designed to measure the impacts of opening preschools, introducing a comprehensive multi-faceted intervention to improve the quality of primary education, and implementing both interventions simultaneously. Four years after implementation began, we collected follow-up data and found that, when implemented separately, both interventions significantly improved children’s skills. Test scores among 6- and 7-year-olds increased by 0.23–0.26 standard deviations relative to the control group, with the largest gains among initially lower-performing children. However, combining the two interventions did not generate additional improvements, suggesting potential substitutability between the two educational investments. This project will conduct a second follow-up in Spring 2027, when sampled children reach the last grades of primary school (CM1-CM2), to estimate longer-term impacts on child development, academic achievement, schooling trajectories, and intra-household dynamics. The study will provide rare evidence on whether medium-term gains persist, fade out, or amplify over time, and whether complementarities emerge later in the schooling cycle. The resulting estimates will allow us to assess the long-run cost-effectiveness of preschool expansion, primary education system strengthening, and their combination.