This paper investigates the impact of early childhood care and education on subsequent educational
attainment in Egypt. Comparisons between siblings are used to control for selection
and duration analysis methods are used to account for the presence of current students in the
data. These methods are compared to OLS to demonstrate the importance of accounting for
both observed and unobserved heterogeneity and for students who have not yet completed
their schooling. Early childhood care and education significantly reduces the probability of
dropping out, specifically during basic education. The change in educational attainment from
early childhood care and education is approximately one additional year of schooling. Key
pathways for this effect include improved school performance, such as increases in test scores
and decreases in repetition, during basic education. Results indicate expanding early childhood
care and education would be an important and effective policy for improving educational
outcomes.