toddlers (age 2-4) for 6 hours a week, children in kindergartens (age 4-6) are to attend 3 hours a day for 5 to 6 days per week, and those in playgroups or daycare (age 4-6) are meant to attend 3 hours a day for 3 days per week. Although these teacher and structural policies have been in place since 2009, little is known about whether and how strictly they are adhered to and whether they actually help promote child development outcomes.

As the government of Indonesia moves to expand and improve early childhood education programs across the country, there is immense interest among policy makers for evidence on whether classroom quality, teacher qualifications, and other structural characteristics (i.e., class size and duration)—all of which are outlined in the national ECED standard—do in fact support positive developmental outcomes for children. Thus, this study focuses on the following three research questions in the context of 303 poor villages in Indonesia:

- i. Does preschool quality—as measured by direct observation of preschool centers in session—predict children’s development outcomes?

- ii. Do teacher characteristics (averaged at the center level) predict children’s development? and

- iii. Do structural characteristics of preschool centers—such as student-to-staff ratios and hours of operation—predict children’s developmental outcomes?

# **4. Data and Measures**

# _Data_

Data for this analysis was collected in 2013 as part of an impact evaluation of the Indonesia ECED Project (see Pradhan et al., 2013 for detailed study protocol). The Indonesia ECED Project aimed to improve poor children’s access to ECED services and enhance their school readiness. Through the project, participating villages created playgroups (hereafter referred to as _project playgroups_ ) and received training for teachers in these playgroups. As part of the project evaluation, data on children enrolled in project playgroups as well as their peers living in the same village attending other types of early childhood programs (i.e., kindergartens, Islamic kindergartens, and non-project playgroups) were collected. The quality of 578 early childhood programs, located in 303 poor villages across 9 districts, was observed during the 2013 survey conducted as part of the impact evaluation of the Indonesia ECED Project.<sup>10</sup> In each of these centers child development outcomes of approximately 15 students were measured.<sup>11</sup>

# _Measures_

# **_Early Development Instrument (EDI)_**

The key dependent variables of interest are children’s developmental outcomes measured using the Early Development Instrument (EDI), which has been shown to be a valid and reliable measure of child development internationally (Ip et al., 2013; Janus et al., 2011; Janus et al., 2007; Janus and Offord, 2007; Brinkman et al., 2013). The EDI is comprised of five domains: physical health and well-being, social competence, emotional maturity, language and cognitive development, and communication skills and general knowledge. Each domain is scored from 1 (low) to 10 (high). A teacher in the early childhood education center in which the child was enrolled

> 10 There were 310 total villages sampled in the evaluation of the Indonesia ECED Project. In 7 of these villages, the available centers did not meet the study’s criteria used for sample inclusion. In the remaining 303 villages, two centers were typically observed. The sampling rule was to pick one project playgroup (when available) and one other center – either a kindergarten or a non-project playgroup.

> 11 In practice, the number of students sampled in each center ranged from 4 to 16.

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