Normative commitment as the key to early childhood education policy implementation in Somaliland

This study examined how leadership commitment influences the implementation of Early Childhood Education (ECE) policy in Somaliland’s public preschools. A cross-sectional survey was conducted with 129 school leaders and administrators to assess three dimensions of commitment—normative, affective, and continuance—and their relationship to ECE policy implementation outcomes. Data were analyzed using diagnostic-informed model selection and quantile regression to address non-normality and heteroscedasticity. Results from the median model (τ = 0.50) show that normative commitment is the strongest and most consistent predictor of ECE policy implementation (β = 2.22, p < 0.001), followed by affective (β = 1.07, p < 0.001) and continuance commitment (β = 1.08, p < 0.001). The model explains 73% of the variance (pseudo-R2 = 0.73). These findings highlight the importance of duty-based and ethically anchored leadership in driving policy execution within fragile education systems. The study underscores that policy success depends not only on technical capacity but also on leaders’ moral responsibility to institutional goals. Limitations include self-reported data and a cross-sectional design, which restrict causal inference. Future research should test these relationships across contexts and over time to strengthen external validity.