Indonesia continues to make strides in expanding access to early childhood education (ECE) across its vast archipelago, now reaching some 70.1% of 3-6 year olds. Yet despite this increased availability, quality of services continue to be poor, especially in rural and low-income areas. In particular, there continues to be reliance on under-qualified teachers, with many having received inadequate formal training, or none at all. The vast benefits of ECE can only be realized if the services that children receive are of sufficient quality, and the lack of skilled teachers in rural areas risks reinforcing inequality of opportunity in Indonesia. As such, the race is on to provide adequate training to the ever-expanding force of early childhood educators to meet the needs of children across the country. Fresh approaches are needed to achieve this scale, since government spending on ECE is limited and the current top-down approach to teacher training can be expensive. — blog.wb.org/blogs