Recent international development efforts have emphasized the importance of supporting early childhood development, yet little is known about the availability of early learning opportunities in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). The present study uses nationally representative data from >163,000 three- and four-year-olds living in 63 countries to estimate the availability of in- and out-of-home early learning opportunities in LMICs. Results suggest that 71.9% of preschool-aged children experience high levels of at-home stimulation (e.g., reading, counting, drawing), 33.6% attend center-based early childhood care and education (ECCE) programming, 29.1% experience both, and 22.9% experience neither. Large geographical and socioeconomic disparities in learning opportunities were found both across and within countries, particularly for ECCE.

Despite increased investment in early childhood care and education (ECCE) globally, little is known about its effectiveness in low-income countries. Using kernel exact matching within a national sample of 1,623 Zambian 6-year-olds, we test the associations between ECCE participation and seven domains of children's school readiness. We find ECCE participation to be significantly and positively predictive of children's receptive vocabulary, letter naming, reasoning, fine motor, executive function, and task performance skills (d = 0.20 − 0.65). Although ECCE predicted better outcomes across program types and dosage levels, associations between ECCE participation and school readiness were descriptively if not significantly larger for children attending nonprofit (versus governmental or private) programs and for those attending ECCE between three and five hours per day (versus those attending less than three or six or more hours per day). Implications of these findings, particularly for the 68% of Zambian children who remain out of ECCE, are discussed.