Early Childhood Education and Care for Kosovo's Human Capital Project

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The proposed Project will be organized around four key components that relate to improving quality, cross-sectoral coordination of ECEC services, and equitable access to ECEC.Component 1: Improving the quality of ECEC services in Kosovo (IDA: US$4.0 million)The objective of this component is to improve the regulatory framework, and operational and implementation capacity to assess and improve the quality of ECEC services. This component will include three sub-components, focused on: (i) ECEC regulatory updates development of new ECEC quality and monitoring frameworks, and using these to support the government in carrying out assessments of ECEC service quality, and measurement of child development outcomes; (ii) building capacity of ECEC professionals; and (iii) digitalization and cross-sectoral integration of data to support data-driven decision making. Activities under this component will have impacts at the system and institutional level of the country, with aspects extending to the whole education system. Component 1 will have a nationwide scale by reforming the approach to ECEC and building the institutional and human capacity of the country. The component will target children from 0-6 years old.Component 2: Fostering multi-sectorial integration in ECEC service delivery (IDA: US$4 million) The objective of Component 2 is to support the Government in improving child development outcomes, particularly through encouraging stimulating development for the first 1,000 days of life, reducing stunting rates through promoting exclusive breastfeeding and healthy nutrition, enhancing child monitoring and early interventions, and cross-sectoral integration of services. Activities under this component will have impacts at the system, institutional, and hierarchical levels of the ECEC management. Component 3: Increasing equitable access to ECEC services (IDA: US$10.4 million; ELP US$2.0 million)The objective of Component 3 is to support the Government's priorities to increase access to ECEC services for families and increase enrollment rates. Interventions under this component will include: (i) constructing, refurbishing, and repurposing facilities for the provision of ECEC services; (ii) providing innovative equipment and TLM to ECEC centers; and (iii) providing vouchers to enroll children from vulnerable families in ECEC services. Activities under this component will have impacts at the institutional level of the country covering the whole ECEC system. Activities under sub-component 3.1 will be national in scope using targeting criteria to select facilities that will be supported. Activities under sub-component 3.2 will help equip all public ECEC centers in Kosovo. The voucher program under sub-component 3.3 will be made available to vulnerable families registered in the SAS with 3-5 year old children. The component will target children ages 0-6, with a specific focus on children ages 3-5 in sub-component 3.3.Component 4: Project Management, and Monitoring and Evaluation (IDA: US$1.7 million)The objective of Component 4 is to support the day-to-day management of project implementation, the monitoring and evaluation of its implementation, and technical assistance and operational support for MESTI. This component will finance the necessary staff of a Project Implementation Unit (PIU) in MESTI and all necessary costs for project implementation. In addition, this component will include the design of an impact evaluation (IE) study relying on the observations and assessments supported under Sub-component 1.1. The IE will combine the TEACH ECE and identified child outcomes assessment instrument, analyzing results in the project ECEC centers and a control group of ECEC centers to show the impact of the project. It will also measure the impact of ECEC expansion that fulfills a childcare function on child development and labor market outcomes. Implementation of the IE will continue throughout the project duration. The component will also finance verification of the PBC, midpoint and endline evaluation of PBC implementation, meaningful outreach and information activities to provide information support to vulnerable families to raise awareness on the ECEC benefits, and support for implementation of the next Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey (MICS) study in Kosovo .