Money Matters for Early Childhood Education: The Effects of Education Subsidy on Preschool Child Readiness in Taiwan

For many children, high quality early learning environment can provide lots of the experiences and skills that help build a foundation for later school success. Among the numerous measures of early childhood education and care quality, some closely linked to later success in school are those which assess school readiness. Many researchers have been claiming that education subsidy is a significant factor related to children's learning and development. In 2010, the Taiwan authority announced “The Free Education Program for Five-Year-Old Children”. This program which was expected to benefit a larger ratio of population revealed the importance that Taiwan government has attached to early childhood education. However, little information is available about "the effects of this program's subsidy on preschool children’s school readiness" and "can this program's subsidy really minimize the gap between disadvantageous and advantageous children". This study used two waves survey for 1073 preschool students who are 5 years old from Eastern Taiwan to construct a longitudinal analysis, in order to examine the relationships between subsidy of the program and the development of children's readiness. The results showed that subsidy of the free education program has significant influences on children's school readiness development. Preschool children who are form lower family socioeconomic status are more likely to accept extra subsidy of free education program, and further will reduce the school readiness gap with their counterparts of non-lower family socioeconomic status. That is to say, the subsidy of free education program for five-year-old children in Taiwan really diminishes the school readiness developmental gap between disadvantageous and advantageous children. The implications of the findings for theory, practice, and preschool education policy are also discussed.