Séminaire de l’OSC: Will sooner be better?

Séminaire de l’OSC vendredi 19 décembre 2014, 9h30-11h, salle Annick Percheron, 98 rue de l’Université Paris 7e

Denis Fougère, directeur de recherche au CREST, co-directeur de l’axe Politiques éducatives du LIEPP :

Will sooner be better? The Impact of Early Preschool Enrollment on Cognitive and Noncognitive Achievement of Children

In this study we measure the effect of entering preelementary school at age 2 rather than 3 in France. Our identification strategy relies on ratios between the number of young children and the capacity of preelementary schools observed at the very local level. This information allows us to solve the endogeneity issue due to the potential correlation between unobserved determinants of early enrollment decision and children achievement. We measure this effect on schooling achievement in primary and lower secondary schools. We show that early enrollment in preelementary school improves cognitive and noncognitive skills at age six, and both literacy and numeracy from the third to the ninth grades.