Empirical Investigation of the Relationship Between Early Childhood Education Attendance and Primary School Completion Rates in North West Nigeria

Early childhood education attendance is theorised to improve primary school completion by strengthening children's learning readiness and family engagement with schooling, and empirically testing this relationship in North West Nigeria provides evidence for ECD investment prioritisation in a low-completion region. This study empirically examined the relationship between ECD attendance and primary school completion in Kano, Kaduna, and Sokoto States, North West Nigeria, using longitudinal data from a household panel survey tracking 1,800 children from pre-school age through primary school completion. Survival analysis was applied to estimate ECD attendance effects on primary school completion probability while controlling for household income, parental education, gender, and religion. Results showed that children who had attended at least one year of ECD were 1.87 times more likely to complete primary school than non-attenders (Hazard Ratio for dropout = 0.53, 95 percent CI 0.41 to 0.68, p < 0.001). Female children showed the largest ECD-completion benefit (HR = 0.41, p < 0.001). The ECD effect was significantly larger in lower-income households. Urban-rural differences in ECD effect size were not statistically significant after controlling for ECD duration and quality. The study provides original longitudinal evidence on the ECD-primary completion link in North West Nigeria and recommends that UBEC and state Universal Basic Education Boards prioritise ECD expansion as a primary completion strategy, targeting female children and lower-income households. Keywords: ECD attendance, primary school completion, North West Nigeria, longitudinal study, educational attainment