Abstract
Improving education outcomes by disseminating information to parents and thereby encouraging them to become more actively engaged in school oversight is attractive, since it can be done relatively cheaply. This study evaluates the impact of alternative approaches to disseminating information about a school grants program in Indonesia on parents' knowledge about the program in general, knowledge about the implementation of the program in their child's school, and participation in school activities related to the program as well as beyond it. Not all dissemination approaches yielded impacts, and different modes of dissemination conveyed different types of information best, resulting in different impacts on behavior. Specifically, the low-intensity approaches that were tried—sending a letter from the principal home with the child, or sending a colorful pamphlet home with the child—had no impact on knowledge or participation. On the other hand, holding a facilitated meeting with a range of school stakeholders or sending targeted text messages to parents did increase knowledge and participation. Facilitated meetings mostly increased overall knowledge and fostered a feeling of transparency on the part of parents, which resulted in greater participation in formal channels for providing feedback to the school. The text messages increased knowledge about specific aspects of the program, such as the grant amount, and tended to increase participation through informal channels.
Highlights
Many countries have embraced school-based management reforms to improve the quality of their education systems, based on the notion that decision-making will be improved by devolving responsibility to those who can more identify the needs of schools (Barrera-Osorio, Fasih and Patrinos 2009)
In Indonesia, alternative approaches to supporting the decentralization process led to different outcomes: complementary interventions that led to increased engagement of parents with the school were associated with positive impacts on learning; other approaches were not (Pradhan et al 2014)
Some of the observed significant effects were found in districts where counterfactual levels of knowledge or behavior were low
Summary
Introduction and MotivationMany countries have embraced school-based management reforms to improve the quality of their education systems, based on the notion that decision-making will be improved by devolving responsibility to those who can more identify the needs of schools (Barrera-Osorio, Fasih and Patrinos 2009). Decentralization has the potential of increasing the accountability of school-level decision-making agents to local communities, which could in turn increase effort and learning outcomes (World Bank 2003). In Nepal (Chaudhury and Parajuli 2010) and Mexico (Gertler, Patrinos and Rubio-Codina 2012; Skoufias and Shapiro 2006) school-based management reforms led to increases in school participation and grade progression, but not to significant increases in test scores. In Madagascar, there were no detectable impacts (Glewwe and Maiga 2011) One reason for these differences is that the details of implementation matter for success (Bruns, Filmer and Patrinos 2011). In Indonesia, alternative approaches to supporting the decentralization process led to different outcomes: complementary interventions that led to increased engagement of parents with the school were associated with positive impacts on learning; other approaches were not (Pradhan et al 2014)
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call
