Community participation in public schools: impact of information campaigns in three Indian states

Abstract

This study evaluates the impact of a community‐based information campaign on school performance from a cluster randomized control trial in 610 villages. The campaign consisted of eight or nine public meetings in each of 340 treatment villages across three Indian states to disseminate information to the community about its state‐mandated roles and responsibilities in school management. No intervention took place in control villages. At baseline there are no significant differences in school outcomes. This paper reports on the first follow up survey that took place two to four months after the intervention. We find that providing information through a structured campaign to communities had a positive impact in all three states. However, there are differences across states in where the impact occurs. The most notable impacts occurred on teacher effort, while impacts on learning were more modest. Some improvements also occurred in the delivery of benefits entitled to students (stipend, uniform and mid‐day meal) and in process variables such as community participation in each of the three states. Future research needs to examine whether there is a systematic increase in learning when the impact is measured over a longer time period and whether a campaign sustained over longer duration generates greater impact on school outcomes.

Keywords:

• basic education
• service delivery
• accountability

Acknowledgements

This work benefited from generous financial support from the Education Program Development fund of the World Bank and by the Government of the Netherlands through the Bank‐Netherlands Partnership program. The authors are extremely grateful to the Nike Foundation for generous financial support and advice in the development of campaign tools. They thank Samuel Carlson, Nazmul Chaudhury, Amit Dar, Deon Filmer, Stuti Khemani and Michelle Riboud for very helpful comments.

Notes

1. A gram panchayat is the lowest administrative unit consisting of two to three revenue villages on average. The elected village government (gram panchayat council with the gram pradhan as its head) is formed at the gram panchayat level.

2. A block is an administrative unit between a district and a GP.

3. Although districts with varying literacy rates are chosen to be in the sample in each state, the sample design is not meant to represent the state but to provide enough statistical power for a valid assessment of the impact of the intervention in each state.

4. In Karnataka, 52 (for 2 districts) or 53 (for other 2 districts) GPs were selected from three randomly chosen talukas within a district. A taluka is the next administrative level below a district, similar to a block in UP and MP, but has far fewer GPs which is why 3 rather than 2 talukas were chosen. One‐third of the GPs within each taluka were randomly assigned to each of the two treatment arms and the remaining third to the control arm. This gives a total of 210 GPs (70 per treatment and 70 as control).

5. Karnataka had a shifted timeline due to different school year timing.

6. In each grade, five each from Scheduled Caste/Scheduled Tribe, other backward classes and other category (consisting of general or high castes) were selected. One‐half were chosen to be girls in each grade and category.

7. The framework can be found online: www.education.nic.in/cd50years/r/2S/Book2S.htm.

8. Blocks with low female literacy rate are defined as educationally backward.

9. Baseline outcomes are reported in detail in a separate paper (Pandey, Goyal, and Sundararaman 2008).

10. We find a significant increase in VEC awareness regarding one of the roles and responsibilities. These results are available from the authors.

11. We find a significant increase in SDMC awareness regarding one of the roles and responsibilities. These results are available from the authors.

12. In focus groups from an earlier study in UP (Pandey et al. 2007), participants reported being afraid of the village head and not trusting him