AUTHOR=Gheorghiu Maria , Hawke Leslie , de Laat Joost , Papari Cǎtǎlina-Alexandra TITLE=Using Evidence and Coalitions to Scale-Up a National Early Education Initiative: The Case of Law 248/2015 in Romania JOURNAL=Frontiers in Public Health VOLUME=8 YEAR=2021 URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/public-health/articles/10.3389/fpubh.2020.591421 DOI=10.3389/fpubh.2020.591421 ISSN=2296-2565 ABSTRACT=

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.