We use a large-scale randomized experiment to study the impact of augmenting staffing in the world’s largest public early-childhood program: India’s Integrated Child Development Services. Adding a worker doubled net preschool instructional time and led to increases of 0.28σ and 0.46σ in math and language test scores after 18 months for children who remained enrolled in the program and 0.13σ and 0.10σ for all children enrolled at baseline. Rates of stunting and severe malnutrition were also lower in the treatment group for children who remained enrolled. A cost-benefit analysis suggests that the benefits of augmenting staffing significantly exceed its costs. These effects are likely to replicate even at larger scales of program implementation.

中文翻译：

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增强国家儿童发展能力：来自印度的实验证据

我们使用大规模随机实验来研究增加人员配置对世界上最大的公共幼儿计划：印度综合儿童发展服务的影响。增加一名工作人员后，净学前教学时间增加了一倍，18 个月后，仍然参加该计划的儿童的数学和语言测试成绩增加了 0.28σ 和 0.46σ，所有基线注册儿童的数学和语言测试成绩增加了 0.13σ 和 0.10σ。对于仍在入学的儿童，治疗组的发育迟缓和严重营养不良的发生率也较低。成本效益分析表明，增加人员配备的效益大大超过其成本。即使在更大规模的计划实施中，这些影响也可能会复制。