Information Campaigns to Strengthen Participation

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Information Campaigns to Strengthen Participation
Improve Public SchoolsExperimental Evidence
from Two Studies in Uttar Pradesh and Madhya
Pradesh

• Stuti Khemani and Priyanka Pandey
• The World Bank

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Motivation

• Widening belief that encouraging participation
  by citizens, or clients of services, can improve
  the quality of publicly provided education
  services
• Education policies across states in India have
  created specific institutions for community
  participation to improve public schools
  
• Emerging survey evidence that citizens are not
  informed about or aware of these institutions
  
• We test (using the gold standard of
  randomization) what impact providing information
  has on participation in and performance of public
  schools

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Study 1 (with Pratham and J-PAL)

• Jaunpur district in Uttar Pradesh (UP)

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Institutions of participation in UP

• Village Education Committee (VEC)
• 5 members elected head of village government
  (Gram Pradhan), senior head teacher from village
  public schools, 3 parents

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Roles of the VEC

• Monitoring Visit schools and inspect records
• Planning and Implementation
• -- Receive and decide how to spend government
  grants
  
• -- Participate in selection of Shiksha Mitras
  (contract teachers recruited from within the
  community) for government schools if there are
  not enough teachers.
• -- Build or maintain school rooms
• -- Manage mid-day meals, distribute scholarships
• -- Raise more money for the school
• -- Work with school teachers to improve education
  quality
  
• -- Encourage parents to improve child attendance

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Evidence on Participation Baseline Survey

• Survey took place over March-June 2005
• In each of 280 Villages (randomly selected), we
  collected data on
  
• Learning Outcomes
• 30 households randomly selected
• all children between the ages of 7 and 14 are
  tested on basic reading, writing, and math
  skills
  
• Community Participation and Local Governance
• 10 households (of the above 30) randomly selected
  and surveyed
  
• All Government primary school head-teachers
  surveyed
  
• All VEC members surveyed
• School Resources and School-Functioning
• All government primary schools surveyed

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Parents dont know that a VEC exists
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VEC members dont know their roles
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(No Transcript)
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Parents of children at low levels of learning are
particularly unlikely to know this
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Parents of children at low levels of learning are
particularly unlikely to know this
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Interventions to Strengthen Community
Participation (1)

• Information about VECs
• Small, informal meetings in each hamlet during 2
  days in a village
  
• Village-wide meeting on 2nd or 3rd day, with
  participation of key VEC membersGram Pradhan and
  School Teacher
  
• Distribution of pamphlets to VEC members listing
  and explaining their roles

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Interventions to Strengthen Community
Participation (2)

• (1) Testing Tool
• In hamlet meetings, facilitators begin testing
  children community invited to test children
  themselves and prepare hamlet-level report
  cards
• In village-wide meeting, hamlet volunteers
  invited to present testing tools and report
  cards
  
• Testing tool provides additional information
  (about learning), mobilizes community, and builds
  capacity in monitoring

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Interventions to Strengthen Community
Participation (3)

• (2) Teaching Tool of Read India
• In village-wide meeting, Pratham facilitators
  present Read India teaching tool
  
• Offer to train anyone who would like to hold
  reading classes
  
• Teaching tool provides additional information
  (about how to improve learning), mobilizes
  community, (come forward to make your village a
  reading village), and builds capacity in teaching

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Experience with Interventions

• 65 villages each received Interventions 1, 2, and
  3 between September and December 2005
  
• Repeat visits in February to hand-out and explain
  pamphlets to VEC members
  
• 85 villages served as controls
• 215 village-wide meetings recorded in 195
  treatment villages on average, attendance of
  108 villagers/meeting
  
• (Village size average 360 hshlds, min 146, max
  1289)
  
• Village Pradhan, and School Head-teacher attended
  68.2 and 71.7 of meetings respectively

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Experience with Interventions

• Read India intervention received large
  responselocal youth volunteered to hold regular
  classes for 2-3 mths
  

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Endline Survey

• Survey took place over March-June 2006
• Impact evaluation using
• -- matched panel of 2500 households
• -- matched panel of 260 govt. schools
• -- matched panel of 16,400 children
• -- VECs matched 240 villages, with responses of
  all VEC members collapsed by village

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Impact Evaluation

• Difference-in-Difference estimates
• With and without controls
• Standard errors clustered by village

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Interventions did happenimpact on knowledge and
training of VECs
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No impact on self-reported VEC activity
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No impact on self-reported VEC activity

• No impact on
• -- self-reported hiring of additional teachers,
• -- distribution of scholarships,
• -- implementation of mid-day meals,
• -- various others

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No impact on parent-reported participation
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No impact on head-teacher reported parent
participation
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No impact on head-teacher reported school
resources
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No impact on number presence of teachers in
public schools
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No impact on public school enrollment and
attendance
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Impact on Learning
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Closer look at impact on reading
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Closer look at impact on reading
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Closer look at impact on reading
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Improvement over time among illiterate children
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Improvement over time among children who could
recognize letters
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Improvement over time among children who could
read words or paragraphs
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Summary of Impact

• Impact on learning driven by local youth
  volunteering to hold reading classes
  
• Children who enrolled in these classes made
  significant improvements in reading within a few
  months
  
• No discernable impact on activity within public
  schools, or by VECs
  
• No anecdotal evidence of VECs, or Pradhans, or
  school teachers, supporting these volunteer-led
  reading classes
  
• Bottomlineevidence of participation to improve
  learning outcomes, but outside public schools