UNIVERSITY OF ECONOMICS INSTITUTE OF SOCIAL STUDIES HO CHI MINH CITY THE HAGUE VIETNAM THE NETHERLANDS VIETNAM – THE NETHERLANDS PROJECT FOR M.A ON DEVELOPMENT ECONOMICS THE EFFECTS OF EARLY CHILDHOOD EDUCATION ATTENDANCE ON COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT: EVIDENCE FROM VIETNAM BY TRIEU VAN VIET MASTER OF ARTS IN DEVELOPMENT ECONOMICS HO CHI MINH CITY, DECEMBER 2015 TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com UNIVERSITY OF ECONOMICS INSTITUTE OF SOCIAL STUDIES HO CHI MINH CITY THE HAGUE VIETNAM THE NETHERLANDS VIETNAM – THE NETHERLANDS PROJECT FOR M.A ON DEVELOPMENT ECONOMICS THE EFFECTS OF EARLY CHILDHOOD EDUCATION ATTENDANCE ON COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT: EVIDENCE FROM VIETNAM A thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of MASTER OF ARTS IN DEVELOPMENT ECONOMICS By TRIỆU VĂN VIỆT Academic Supervisor: Dr. NGUYỄN HỮU DŨNG HO CHI MINH CITY, DECEMBER 2015 TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com ABSTRACT Over the past several decades, numerous studies have documented the association between early childhood education attendance and children’s cognitive abilities. This thesis aims to examine whether the positive relationship between preschool attendance and cognitive skills found in previous studies holds in Vietnam. The thesis used the first two rounds of longitudinal data from the Young Lives study in Vietnam.
The sample is a “younger cohort” of approximately 2000 children who were born in 2001 to 2002. Ordinary least squares (OLS) and instrument variables (IV) estimation methods were applied to examine the link between preschool attendance and child cognition of 5-years-old (measured by the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test (PPVT) and the Cognitive Development Assessment test (CDA)). In line with the literature, a positive and statistically significant relationship between preschool attendance and cognitive attainments was found for 5-years-old children in Vietnam. The IV estimation produces a higher coefficient on preschool attendance than the OLS, which implies that a downward bias of OLS model.
In addition, children living in urban areas, children whose father and caregiver had higher education levels, ethnic Kinh children, and children from wealthier families scored higher on cognitive tests. Hence, government should invest more in early childhood development, particularly for rural, poor and ethnic minority children to enhance their cognitive ability before entering primary education. i TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I had great support and contributions from many individuals and organizations to completion of my thesis. I would first like to thank the Young Lives Study for kindly using of the baseline data.
I am grateful to my academic supervisor, Dr. Nguyen Huu Dung for all of his comments and suggestions on this thesis. In addition, I have greatly benefited from the support of the Scientific Committee members of Vietnam-The Netherlands Programme for M. in Development Economics.
Finally, I am very thankful to all the staff of Vietnam-The Netherlands Programme, who helped me at different stages of my thesis. I would also like to thank all of my classmates. ii TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com ABBREVIATIONS ADB Asia Development Bank CDA The quantitative of Cognitive Development Assessment test ECE Early Childhood Education ECLS-K Early Childhood Longitudinal Study- Kindergarten HAZ Height-for-age z-score IV Instrument Variables MOET Ministry of Education and Training N Number of observations PPVT Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test OLS Ordinary Least Squares OVERID Over-identification test SD Standard Deviation SES Socioeconomic Status 2SLS Two-stage Least Squares UNESCO United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization UNICEF United Nations International Children's Emergency Fund YLs Young Lives iii TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com TABLE OF CONTENTS CHAPTER I: INTRODUCTION .4 Research scope and data .5 The structure of the thesis .3 CHAPTER II: LITERATURE REVIEW .1 Early Childhood Education .2 The importance of investing in early childhood care and education .3 Empirical study review .1 The impact of pre-school attendance on child cognition .2 The impact of other factors on child cognition .1 The impact of socioeconomic status (SES) .2 The impact of number of siblings .3 The impact of child health and nutritional status .4 Previous research of early childhood education attendance in Vietnam .12 CHAPTER III: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY .1 An overview of pre-school enrolment in Viet Nam .2 Empirical strategy and econometric modeling .3 Description of key variables .25 CHAPTER IV: RESULTS AND DISCUSSION.1 Results of OLS regressions .1 The impact of preschool attendance on the CDA scores of the child .2 The impact of preschool attendance on the PPVT scores of the child35 4.2 Results of IV estimation with binary endogenous variable .37 iv TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.1 The impact of preschool attendance on the CDA scores of the child .1 The impact of preschool attendance on the PPVT scores of the child41 CHAPTER V: CONCLUSION .3 Limitations and recommendations for future research .55 Appendix 1: The construction of the wealth index .55 Appendix 2: Results of t-test on CDA score by preschool (mean-comparison tests), coded 1 for preschool attendees, 0 for non-preschool attendees .56 Appendix 3: Comparison of densities of level and natural logarithm of the CDA and PPVT scores .56 Appendix 4: Results of t test on PPVT score by ethnicity (mean-comparison tests), coded 1 for ethnic children, 0 for kinh or chinese children .56 Appendix 5: Results of t-test on CDA score by region (mean-comparison tests) .57 Appendix 6: Total bad events between CDA and PPVT model .58 Appendix 7: Results of OLS regression on CDA scores .58 Appendix 8: Results of OLS regression on PPVT score .59 Appendix 9: Results of 2SLS regression with binary endogenous variable (CDA score) .60 Appendix 10: Results of 2SLS regression with binary endogenous variable (PPVT score) .61 Appendix 11: Test for weak instruments .62 v TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1: Rates of return to human capital investment .6 Figure 2: Enrolment in pre-primary education, both sexes (number) .15 Figure 3: Gross enrolment ratio (%) in Pre-primary education .16 Figure 4: Conceptual framework for assessing early cognitive development .18 Figure 5: The distributions of CDA and PPVT scores.29 Figure 6: Kernel density estimates for PPVT and CDA scores at Round 2, by pre- school attendance .30 LIST OF TABLES Table 1: Enrolment in pre-primary education in Vietnam from 1999 to 2013 .15 Table 2: Variables definitions .25 Table 3: Description of variables .27 Table 4: Children’s cognitive development by Pre-school attendance .28 Table 5: Children’s cognitive development by ethnicity .31 Table 6: Children’s cognitive development by region .31 Table 7: Results of OLS regressions on cognitive achievement .33 Table 8: Correlation between pre-school enrollment, number of siblings,.37 Table 9: Results of 2SLS regression with binary endogenous variable.39 Table 10: The OLS and IV estimates of preschool attendance on the CDA scores .40 Table 11: The OLS and IV estimates of preschool attendance on the PPVT scores 42 vi TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com CHAPTER I: INTRODUCTION 1.1 Introduction Early childhood is defined as “the period between birth and eight years of life” (UNESCO & UNICEF, 2012). Research in the field of cognition, psychology, and neuroscience has established that learning process is easier in early childhood than any other periods in the human life (Bransford, 1979; Shore, 1997).
In the first three years of life, children’s brain develop rapidly, about two times more active than an adult (Shore, 1997). Additionally, economists argued that skill formation is a life cycle and cumulative process (Carneiro & Heckman, 2003; Cunha et al. The skill obtained at one stage of the life cycle will enhance the skill obtainment at next stage of the life cycle, skill begets skill and that learning begets more learning. Early childhood education (ECE) play a large role in building basic skills early in life such as literacy and numeracy, and these skills are critical for long-term skill development such as problem-solving abilities and capacities (European Commission, 2011).
From an economic perspective, investments in early childhood development has been shown to improve cognitive and physical development, reduce crime rates, alleviate poverty, and increase economic growth (Barnett & Nores, 2012) In Vietnam, the Education Law 2005 defines Early Childhood Education covers "the nurturing, caring, and educating children from three months to six years of age" (The National Assembly of Vietnam, 2005). Early childhood education system in Vietnam consists of daycare centres, kindergarten, and pre-school or pre- primary education. The children from three to five years old participating pre- school has increased dramatically in recent years, from 39 per cent in 1996 to 60 per cent in 2003(ADB, 2005). The number of children in ECE was 2,480,272 in schooling year 2000-2001, and this figure has increased to 2,754,094 in year 2004- 2005, an increased by 2.
However, low quality education has raised the questions about what is learned in pre-school education and 1 TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com how this relates to children’s cognitive skills development at the ages of 5 years in Vietnam. The effects of early childhood education on children’s cognitive outcomes have been widely studied from a variety of aspects, including the variation in methods, types of interventions, national contexts, and outcomes. A number of authors have looked into the benefits of early intervention childcare and compensatory education programs (Barnett, 1995; Blau & Currie, 2006; Carneiro & Heckman, 2003; Love et al. Others have investigated the relationship between maternal employment and childcare during preschool years on cognitive development (see for literature reviews Blau & Grossberg, 1990; Waldfogel et al.
There is substantial empirical evidence that ECE programs improve children’ cognitive outcomes, both in the short and in the long run. However, few empirical studies have been investigated about the effect of early childhood education (pre- school) attendance on cognitive achievement in Vietnam. In addition, more understanding about the relationship between schooling and cognitive development is critical for policymakers to conduct early intervention to improve the children development. This thesis will apply ordinary least squares (OLS) and instrument variables (IV) approach with data from Young Lives project in Vietnam for examining the relationship between pre-school attendance and children’s cognitive outcomes.
The results of analysis contribute to the existing educational literature, and the suggestions for future research are also provided.2 Research objectives The purpose of this thesis is to examine whether pre-school attendance affects cognitive abilities of children about 5-year-olds in Vietnam.3 Research question - Does preschool attendance affect cognitive achievement of five years old of the child in Vietnam? - How does preschool attendance affect the child cognitive achievement? 1.4 Research scope and data 2 TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com The thesis used the first two rounds of longitudinal data from the Young Lives study in Vietnam. The sample is a “younger cohort” of 2000 children who were born in 2000/1. Round 1 were surveyed in 2002, when these children were aged between 6 to 18 months old. Round 2 were surveyed in 2006, when they were aged between 4 to 6 years old.5 The structure of the thesis This thesis is organized into five chapters.
In the second chapter define the term “Early childhood education” and “Cognitive Development” and then presents empirical studies about the links between pre-school attendance and children’s cognitive development. Chapter 3: This chapter is divided into two sections. In the first section describes an overview pre-school enrolment in Vietnam, and then the second section presents the empirical methodology used for econometric analysis. Chapter 4: The following section briefly describes the data used in the estimation.
Estimation results from OLS and IV regression on child cognitive skills are also presented. Chapter 5: The final chapter draws conclusions from analyzing the data, provides some policy implications to improve Vietnam’s pre-school education system, and guidelines for future research on this topic with Vietnam data. 3 TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com CHAPTER II: LITERATURE REVIEW This chapter firstly defines the term “Early childhood education”, “Cognitive Development”. The second section will explain the importance for investing in early childhood education and then presents prior studies about the links between preschool attendance and child cognition.1 Early Childhood Education Early childhood refers to the period from the birth to age eight years of life.