Quality Preschool for Ghana (QP4G)

Context

Ghana has one of the highest pre-primary education enrollment rates in the region, partly due to the Government of Ghana expanding two years of pre-primary education to be included in universal basic education in 2007. However, the quality of pre-primary education in Ghana is low, particularly in urban

and semi-urban settings, where low-cost private and public preschools account for over 90 percent of preprimary options. The early childhood years are a crucial window for development, forming the basis for future learning. A large portion of kindergarten teachers in Ghana are untrained, and many only have a primary education. Equipping teachers with skills and training is necessary to improve the quality of early childhood education, leading to large-scale improvements in child learning and development

Solution

The Quality Preschool for Ghana (QP4G) program was designed to enhance the quality of early childhood education (ECE) and build capacity for implementing Ghana's 2004 kindergarten (KG) curriculum. The project's goal was to develop and evaluate an affordable and scalable model of teacher training to provide high-quality ECE services to children, also testing the added benefits of engaging parents via educational awareness meetings.
The program consisted of two main components: in-service teacher training and coaching programs and parental awareness meetings. Teacher training was delivered to kindergarten teachers and head teachers by the National Nursery Teacher Training Center (NNTTC) and built into existing education structures to ensure scalability. The training included an initial five-day course with two follow-up refreshers, offering experiential learning and focusing on play-based, age-appropriate teaching and positive classroom management. Teachers received ongoing in-class support each term from district education coordinators acting as coaches. Parental Awareness Meetings consisted of three termly sessions during PTA meetings, where district coordinators screened videos and led discussions to align parental expectations with the play-based curriculum and promote parent-school communication. 240 public and private schools in six districts of the Greater Accra Region were randomly assigned to one of three groups: teacher training and coaching only, both teacher training and parental awareness programs, or a comparison group (neither).

Impact

The teacher training and coaching program significantly improved classroom quality and reduced teacher burnout and turnover. Notably, teacher turnover in private schools dropped from 44% to 12% (teacher training only) and 17% (with parental awareness). Children’s school readiness improved modestly, with gains in literacy, numeracy, and social-emotional skills that largely persisted a year later, especially for social-emotional development. However, some classroom quality impacts faded once support ended. The parental awareness component did not enhance child outcomes and sometimes offset gains, underscoring the need for careful, context-sensitive delivery. These are preliminary findings, and further assessments are needed to evaluate the long-term sustainability of teacher and child outcomes to ensure interventions remain effective at scale.

The QP4G program addressed key barriers to quality early childhood education in Ghana, including untrained teachers and low classroom quality, by delivering structured, curriculum-aligned training and ongoing coaching. Its integration into existing education systems, use of local trainers, and relatively low per-child cost make it scalable and replicable in similar urban and peri-urban contexts with existing infrastructure. However, scaling would require sustained funding for coaching, careful adaptation for rural settings with fewer resources, and improved strategies for engaging parents to avoid counterproductive effects. The model offers a promising, affordable approach to improving pre-primary education quality at scale.