Managing Early Learning: Local Bureaucratic Practices and Pre-school Quality in Northern Ghana

This study examines the management practices of middle-tier bureaucrats in the Ghana Education Service across 54 districts in northern Ghana. We develop indices capturing district-level practices across four domains: operations, monitoring, targets, and incentives. These are linked to structured observations of kindergarten classrooms and validated against an independent governance benchmark. We document substantial variation in management quality, with incentive-related practices most consistently associated with stronger classroom environments. Our findings suggest that local administrative capacity—particularly around incentives-related practices—may play an important role in shaping early learning quality. The results highlight the relevance of system-level features for improving early childhood education through existing public sector structures.