Can preschool reduce school dropout in developing countries? Evidence based on Young Lives data from Andhra Pradesh, India

While remedial education, conditional cash transfers, and supply-side inputs have been the focus of educational policies aimed at increasing school completion in developing countries, preschooling has received little attention. Applying entropy matching methods to Young Lives survey data, we estimate the effect of attending preschool in early childhood on school dropout rates in Andhra Pradesh, India. The richness and features of the data allow us to account for potential confounders. We find that preschool significantly reduces dropout rates by 7 percentage points–a 17% reduction relative to the mean–and that this is robust to alternative methods.