Using evidence and coalitions to scale up a national early education initiative - The case of Law 248/2015 in Romania

In 2015, Romania took an important step toward increasing disadvantaged children’s
participation in early education programmes through the passage of legislation creating
a nationwide conditional cash transfer programme linked to preschool attendance.
The programme was modeled on the incentive component of a 5-year pilot project
“Every Child in Preschool” (“FCG”) initiated by Asociatia OvidiuRo (“OvR”), a small
non-governmental organization. This paper explores how OvR used evidence from
its pilot, global research, a quasi-experimental evaluation, collaboration with local
authorities, and an intensive advocacy effort toward the legislative and executive
branches of the national government to achieve the national scale-up of an early
education initiative designed to create equal access in kindergarten among Roma and
other impoverished, marginalized children.