Discussion and conclusion
MP, Changing behavior
We find that providing information in a structured and repeated manner to communities enhanced the delivery of teacher effort in public school classrooms and improved learning. Improvements occurred in teacher effort, learning and functioning of school committees. The impacts were larger in UP and MP and much smaller in Karnataka possibly because the states had different starting points. Baseline outcomes were much higher in Karnataka indicating greater efficiency in delivery. Impacts were in general larger or broader than those observed in the midline survey that measured impact 2–4 months after the initial intervention [In MP and UP, the impact on teacher effort was primarily for civil-service teachers who have permanent jobs and minimal incentive to work. These effects were 23% increase in teacher attendance in UP, and 16% increase in teacher attendance and 43% increase in teacher activity in MP. Among civil service teachers, the impact was greater for high caste, male and more educated teachers. Low teacher effort for these categories of teachers is a robust finding in the empirical literature for developing countries and attributed to their more powerful social status [On learning outcomes, in MP and UP a consistent result was increase in the shares of children acquiring mathematics competencies. The magnitudes of the percentage increases were much larger, due to low baseline levels of learning, compared to absolute increases in shares which were more modest in magnitude. In Karnataka, the impact occurred in mathematics competencies as in the other two states. This implies that classroom teaching was possibly impacted, although teacher effort as measured in the survey did not change in the state. Not much improvement was observed in language competencies except in UP. The modest impacts on language observed at midline were not sustained in MP and Karnataka. Although the impacts on learning, particularly in math, are larger than those observed at midline, the lack of wider or even larger impacts on learning is attributed to at least two factors. First and perhaps more important, teaching skills and teacher preparation in content and pedagogy are inadequate [In terms of process outcomes, in MP and UP school councils were more active after the campaign. Council members reported more meetings and school visits. The greater number of changes in participation and awareness outcomes of school council members in UP relative to MP can be partly due to a differences in the structure, roles and responsibilities of councils (Focus group discussions highlight the mechanisms of change and barriers that remained. First, the information provided was valued given the degree of discussion and monitoring it engendered. Second, learning was important to parents given their involvement in using the learning assessment tool and conferring with service providers. Third, the campaign spurred community action. Many parents actively brought up teaching and learning issues with teachers and councils. Change seems to have occurred through communities discussing and bringing-up issues with service providers. Two critical suggestions made by focus groups are indicative: first, organize a large meeting where the entire community is present and second, provide information regularly. Barriers to collective action are also apparent. The main obstacle to change identified was the powerful status of teachers. Teachers tend to enjoy protection from local elites [The strengths of this study are that it used a structured, practical and easily replicable intervention, had a rigorous design and broad geographic coverage. Information that becomes common knowledge can help citizens demand services from providers, especially in the context of decentralized control over public services. The study’s results build on previous work [Key features of the information program can be useful to policy-makers in designing similar programs. Empowering communities with information requires resources, but can still be cost-effective in improving service delivery. The cost of running the campaign was approximately $149 per village cluster yearly. More than 70% of India’s public education budget is teacher salaries [Changing behavior to improve learning outcomes in schools requires time. In a meta-analysis of the effectiveness of school-based management models in the US that reviewed 232 studies looking at 29 types of such programs, the number of years of program implementation was a significant predictor of the magnitude of impact on student achievement [