Abstract
The authors present findings from a field experiment in rural Sindh, Pakistan, where half of school age children (6 to 10 years) are out of school. This paper presents results of testing alternative approaches to strengthen engagement of communities with schools: face-to-face dialogue at externally-facilitated community meetings; and ongoing, anonymous dialogue via text messages. The interventions increased communities’ interest in education as measured through an improvement in the number of functioning schools and, in the case of the text message treatment, substantial gains in retention of students in grades 2, 3, and 4. On the supply side, schools were able to significantly increase staffing and reduce the share of one-teacher-schools; however, teacher absenteeism increased, and there was no substantial impact on basic school infrastructure. An additional reform to an existing institution, elections and capacity building for school committees, was implemented in a cross-over experimental design; the intervention undermined the participation of communities in meetings and reduced impacts on all indicators except new admissions and availability of toilets in schools. Overall, the authors find no evidence of impact on measured test scores for any intervention. The findings suggest that community engagement can achieve some impacts on school access and quality, but even when communities are engaged with schools, there is a limit to what they can do to fill in the administrative gaps left by the state.
Highlights
Engagement of citizens in dialogue, monitoring, and decision-making in public services has been widely adopted since 2000 to address state failure in developing countries (World Bank, 2004; Heller and Rao, 2015)
In recognition of the fact that the large number of one-teacher schools appears to be a central driver of school closures in Sindh, we present the share of schools which have only one registered teacher
To understand the direction of change in school functioning between baseline and endline, we conduct transition probability analysis of the likelihood of the school changing status from closed to open between baseline and endline; to capture any potential reduction in school closures, we capture the likelihood of schools changing from open to closed (Table 6)
Summary
In the case of education, attempts to engage communities have focused primarily on School Management Committees (SMCs)—elected local bodies that create agency and voice for community members, allowing them to have more say in the decision-making process. These committees are typically given control over school grants to respond to immediate needs of the school. Committee members may be given responsibility to monitor teachers and ensure school-age children attend school Such reforms have been associated with increased enrollment, reduced dropout, and improvements in school facilities and staffing in countries including Cambodia, Honduras and Mexico (Benveniste and Marshall, 2004; di Gropello and Marshall, 2005; Gertler et al, 2011)
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