Measuring the impact of a training intervention for early childhood centre staff on child development outcomes: Findings from a cluster randomized control field trial in rural Malawi.

Background: Evidence from low-income settings around early education interventions that can improve young children's development is sparse, particularly with regard to the most marginalized children. This study used a two-arm parallel cluster randomized control design to evaluate the impact of an adapted staff training programme on the developmental outcomes of children attending community-based early learning centres in Thyolo district, rural Malawi.

Methods: At baseline we randomly selected 48 centres, from each of which 20 children were randomly selected, although data from one centre was incomplete resulting in 932 children from 47 centres.