Can schools' accountability for learning be strengthened from the grassroots? Investigating the potential for community-school partnerships in India
Lead Research Organisation:
University of Cambridge
Department Name: Faculty of Education
Abstract
Our project explores the potential of community based accountability relationships to raise children's foundational learning outcomes, with a focus on the most disadvantaged primary-school learners: namely those who are from poorer households and, within these, girls. We ask both whether and how changes occur when school actors are supported to view their accountability as being primarily to their local community and their goal as being to raise all children's learning. To do this, we evaluate a grassroots intervention that supports school actors to work directly with their communities to develop a shared understanding of children's learning levels, collaborate in planning how to raise them, and facilitate action both inside and outside the classroom. In addition to analysing changes in children's learning, we will examine the intervention's capacity to create changes in school-community relations, and teachers' attitudes perceptions, and actions in the classroom.
The intervention builds on two of Pratham's grassroots literacy campaigns to incorporate school-community accountability relationships. Lakhon mein Ek (LME) was primarily an information campaign, supporting communities to undertake and discuss their own independent assessments of children's learning outcomes. Reading Week (RW) provided community volunteers with packages of simple materials with which to work with children to improve their foundational literacy and numeracy skills. The proposed intervention, which we call LME+, seeks to enhance the impact of these previous interventions by working directly with school actors to help them engage and work with their local communities.
Our theory of change holds that participation of school actors in LME+ will facilitate their understanding of the problem of inadequate foundational learning and therefore their willingness to use LME+ methods, materials and approaches - or their equivalent - in their own practice. Further, it posits that school actors' engagement with the problem will also lead them to successfully negotiate permission to implement new methods, materials and/or teaching activities aimed at improving children's foundational learning. By altering the nature of school actors' engagement with communities and practice within schools, we theorise that LME+ has the potential to rebalance systems of accountability at the local level towards a greater focus on learning outcomes.
In order to investigate the impact of the intervention, we propose to undertake an experimental approach based on mixed research methods. We will first select a state with moderate to high amenability towards new learning initiative, and within this state we will then sample a random selection of 400 villages with 2 or more government schools in each village. The selection of relative large villages is necessary to increase the sample size and maintain low costs. The focus on government schools is important because these are the institutions where the most marginalized children are enrolled. 150 villages (300 schools) will be selected for the LME+ intervention; 125 villages (250 schools) for the original LME & RW intervention and 125 villages (250 schools) as controls. Using varied data collection tools, such as foundational learning assessments, background information, perceptions and attitudes of school actors, classroom observations, interviews with key stakeholders, and monitoring of participation, the aim is to construct reliable counterfactuals that enable us to identify the overall impact of the intervention on learning outcomes and on school actors' attitudes and perceptions, and also to assess whether these impacts are conditional on changes within the school. We also investigate the processes underlying such changes and the potential of this approach to realign the objectives of government educational institutions, schools and communities towards raising learning outcomes using 6 villages as case studies.
The intervention builds on two of Pratham's grassroots literacy campaigns to incorporate school-community accountability relationships. Lakhon mein Ek (LME) was primarily an information campaign, supporting communities to undertake and discuss their own independent assessments of children's learning outcomes. Reading Week (RW) provided community volunteers with packages of simple materials with which to work with children to improve their foundational literacy and numeracy skills. The proposed intervention, which we call LME+, seeks to enhance the impact of these previous interventions by working directly with school actors to help them engage and work with their local communities.
Our theory of change holds that participation of school actors in LME+ will facilitate their understanding of the problem of inadequate foundational learning and therefore their willingness to use LME+ methods, materials and approaches - or their equivalent - in their own practice. Further, it posits that school actors' engagement with the problem will also lead them to successfully negotiate permission to implement new methods, materials and/or teaching activities aimed at improving children's foundational learning. By altering the nature of school actors' engagement with communities and practice within schools, we theorise that LME+ has the potential to rebalance systems of accountability at the local level towards a greater focus on learning outcomes.
In order to investigate the impact of the intervention, we propose to undertake an experimental approach based on mixed research methods. We will first select a state with moderate to high amenability towards new learning initiative, and within this state we will then sample a random selection of 400 villages with 2 or more government schools in each village. The selection of relative large villages is necessary to increase the sample size and maintain low costs. The focus on government schools is important because these are the institutions where the most marginalized children are enrolled. 150 villages (300 schools) will be selected for the LME+ intervention; 125 villages (250 schools) for the original LME & RW intervention and 125 villages (250 schools) as controls. Using varied data collection tools, such as foundational learning assessments, background information, perceptions and attitudes of school actors, classroom observations, interviews with key stakeholders, and monitoring of participation, the aim is to construct reliable counterfactuals that enable us to identify the overall impact of the intervention on learning outcomes and on school actors' attitudes and perceptions, and also to assess whether these impacts are conditional on changes within the school. We also investigate the processes underlying such changes and the potential of this approach to realign the objectives of government educational institutions, schools and communities towards raising learning outcomes using 6 villages as case studies.
Planned Impact
Our research programme will generate unique, high-quality evidence that will impact on academics, policymakers, practitioners, and community-based organisations in addition to the general public. It will do this by improving our understanding of:
1. The potential for community-led accountability initiatives to engage with and influence the formal education sector in a coherent way
2. The potential to build sustainable, grass-roots partnerships between communities and local school actors (teachers, head teachers, administrators and others)
3. The impact of such engagements on shared accountability, cooperation, and learning outcomes for children, with a particular focus on those from disadvantaged backgrounds associated with poverty and gender.
With respect to policymakers, we will use Pratham's ongoing partnerships with ten state governments as a vehicle to disseminate findings from this research. We will do this via a range of formal and informal discussions, dissemination of materials such as policy briefs and recommendations for new strategies and directions emerging from the findings of this research. In the UK and internationally, we will use established contacts of the Research for Equitable Access and Learning (REAL) Centre as well as the lead of Professor Pauline Rose to disseminate results within DfID, UN organisations and other international agencies engaged in education.
With respect to practitioners, we will use Pratham's existing partnerships with District Institutes of Education and Training, which provide preservice and in-service training to government school teachers, to build the capacity of current and future primary school teachers to measure, understand, and act upon observed gaps between policy objectives and ground realities in local schools. The focus of all of these capacity building initiatives is to improve students' understanding of and accountability to local needs, particularly with respect to learning outcomes. Findings from the proposed study will feed into the design of additional modules for these capacity building initiatives.
With respect to NGOs, we will disseminate the project's innovative framing of accountability with NGOs working in other developing countries. Cambridge team members have a range of working partnerships that would help to facilitate this. Both Dr Sabates and Professor Rose hold key advisory roles within FHI360's Education Equity Research Initiative, while the REAL Centre is a leading partner in The Impact Initiative for International Development Research. Both initiatives provide opportunities to disseminate successful practices across a range of NGO projects. In addition, the REAL Centre's partnership with Camfed, as part of the Girls' Education Challenge, offers another opportunity for direct impact on a large-scale project, as Camfed works to improve community-school relations in order to promote educational among marginalized girls in Sub-Saharan Africa. Within India, we will use Pratham's research and assessment arm, (ASER Centre) which is a member of the People's Action for Learning (PAL) network, comprising 13 countries spread across 3 continents to disseminate results. Dr Bhattacharjea is currently Chair of the network.
1. The potential for community-led accountability initiatives to engage with and influence the formal education sector in a coherent way
2. The potential to build sustainable, grass-roots partnerships between communities and local school actors (teachers, head teachers, administrators and others)
3. The impact of such engagements on shared accountability, cooperation, and learning outcomes for children, with a particular focus on those from disadvantaged backgrounds associated with poverty and gender.
With respect to policymakers, we will use Pratham's ongoing partnerships with ten state governments as a vehicle to disseminate findings from this research. We will do this via a range of formal and informal discussions, dissemination of materials such as policy briefs and recommendations for new strategies and directions emerging from the findings of this research. In the UK and internationally, we will use established contacts of the Research for Equitable Access and Learning (REAL) Centre as well as the lead of Professor Pauline Rose to disseminate results within DfID, UN organisations and other international agencies engaged in education.
With respect to practitioners, we will use Pratham's existing partnerships with District Institutes of Education and Training, which provide preservice and in-service training to government school teachers, to build the capacity of current and future primary school teachers to measure, understand, and act upon observed gaps between policy objectives and ground realities in local schools. The focus of all of these capacity building initiatives is to improve students' understanding of and accountability to local needs, particularly with respect to learning outcomes. Findings from the proposed study will feed into the design of additional modules for these capacity building initiatives.
With respect to NGOs, we will disseminate the project's innovative framing of accountability with NGOs working in other developing countries. Cambridge team members have a range of working partnerships that would help to facilitate this. Both Dr Sabates and Professor Rose hold key advisory roles within FHI360's Education Equity Research Initiative, while the REAL Centre is a leading partner in The Impact Initiative for International Development Research. Both initiatives provide opportunities to disseminate successful practices across a range of NGO projects. In addition, the REAL Centre's partnership with Camfed, as part of the Girls' Education Challenge, offers another opportunity for direct impact on a large-scale project, as Camfed works to improve community-school relations in order to promote educational among marginalized girls in Sub-Saharan Africa. Within India, we will use Pratham's research and assessment arm, (ASER Centre) which is a member of the People's Action for Learning (PAL) network, comprising 13 countries spread across 3 continents to disseminate results. Dr Bhattacharjea is currently Chair of the network.
Publications
Bhattacharjea S
(2020)
Strengthening accountability of schools at the grassroots
Alcott B
(2020)
From assessment to action: lessons from the development of Theories of Change with the People's Action for Learning Network
in Global Education Review
Aslam M
(2021)
Poverty Impacts on Literacy Education -
Cashman L
(2021)
Parental involvement in low-achieving children's learning: The role of household wealth in rural India
in International Journal of Educational Research
Wadmare P
(2022)
Understanding the accuracy of teachers' perceptions about low achieving learners in primary schools in rural India: An empirical analysis of alignments and misalignments
in International Journal of Educational Research Open
Ramanujan P
(2022)
A multistage approach to qualitative sampling within a mixed-methods evaluation: some reflections on purpose and process.
in Canadian Journal of Program Evaluation
| Description | This project aimed to improve school accountability for learning by understanding whether and how different stakeholders can individually and collectively work to support and enhance children's foundational learning. The key findings and main achievements of the project are: • There are misaligned perceptions between teachers, head teachers, and parents, not just on whether children have achieved foundational literacy and numeracy, but also on what is expected from each other in terms of supporting children's learning. In particular, both school actors and parents overestimate children's learning levels. If these stakeholders do not perceive learning to be a problem, it is challenging for any programme to introduce remedial or alternative provision. Changing stakeholders' perceptions was challenging, at least in the short run, due to the COVID-19 pandemic and other situations, such as state elections and teacher strikes. • One of the main findings indicate the importance of community-school partnerships and effective parent-teacher interactions for improving children's foundational learning. Over a 6-month period, the improvement in children's foundational learning is greater when stakeholders collaborate than when they act in isolation. Unfortunately, there are still low levels of participation and involvement between stakeholders. Further research is required to understand the power dynamics and social disparities among different stakeholders that may hinder their participation. In addition, enhancing these partnerships and interactions may take time and further research is also required to capture the impact on learning from long term and sustained interactions between stakeholders. • Formal interactions between teachers and parents are still characterised by one-way information flow. Meetings are usually led by the teacher and consist of minimal dialogue and lack of collaborative approaches with parents. Parents are not seen by teachers as important agents of change, particularly for enhancing children's academic skills. Future research should continue to focus on how to promote sustained and effective collaboration between schools and families, including ways to shift teachers' expectations and perceptions when interacting with parents. • Parental involvement in their children's education was hindered by a lack of information and awareness about ways to help at home and school. The community-based activities and interactions with teachers initiated by Pratham through their PAHAL programme continues to raise parental awareness and provides them with skills to help improve children' foundational literacy and numeracy in these communities. • Finally, Pratham trained local volunteers to conduct classes to support children learning in their villages. The PAHAL programme encouraged community members to collaborate with their schools in the organisation of events to celebrate learning. The research teams in India and in the UK were committed to place the voices and perspectives from local stakeholders are at the centre of the work. Researchers were encouraged to constantly reflect on their own biases and the power dynamics, and to challenge and deconstruct assumptions and perspectives on research emerging from the Western academia. Adopting critical and decolonial approaches reflects the research team's commitment to broader social justice goals in educational research. |
| Exploitation Route | The fact that children are not learning is a concern for all stakeholders - teachers, school, parents and community. Pratham, the largest Education NGO in India, has utilised the information collected from the research to redesign their future programmes. In particular, Pratham recognises how challenging is to bring a sense of overall responsibility for supporting children with their schooling and learning. Pratham has continued to innovate with activities which are useful for raising foundational skills. Unfortunately, these activities are only used by signle stakeholders (e.g. parents, volunteers or teachers) and it is unclear whether these activities continue to be implemented over time. For example, during the pandemic Pratham provided simple activities which were used to enhanced foundational skills. These activities were done so that parents without any experience of formal education were able to access the materials and support their children. The materials were also developed so that those with limited accessibility to smart phones or internet could still use these materials. Overall, as indicated by our key findings, there are questions about sustainability of stakeholders engagement over the long run that requires further investigation. |
| Sectors | Education |
| URL | https://www.educ.cam.ac.uk/centres/real/researchthemes/teachingandlearning/accountability/ |
| Description | Our research continues to provide evidence in terms of what works for raising learning outcomes in rural areas of Uttar Pradesh. We do this by engaging further with the innovative activities developed by Pratham and understanding the crucial role played by parents in enabling improved foundational skills. In addition, we continue to collaborate with the ASER Centre and disseminate findings which continue to promote alternative provision and accountability mechanisms to raise foundational skills. |
| First Year Of Impact | 2021 |
| Sector | Education |
| Impact Types | Societal |
| Description | Educational support for children in Rural Uttar Pradesh |
| Amount | $1,494,067 (USD) |
| Organisation | Mars Wrigley Foundation |
| Sector | Charity/Non Profit |
| Country | United States |
| Start | 07/2018 |
| End | 06/2020 |
| Description | Helping communities navigate COVID-19 |
| Amount | ₹17,750,000 (INR) |
| Organisation | Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation |
| Sector | Charity/Non Profit |
| Country | United States |
| Start | 08/2020 |
| Title | Covid-19 pandemic phone survey on households and teachers during the school closure |
| Description | We tracked the sampled children's households and teachers through a phone survey (by contacting their phone/mobile numbers) during the Covid-19 pandemic to capture the children's and teachers' education-related activities during school closures. For instance, we collected data from sampled household for children's current enrolment status, education support through home and paid tuition, availability of smart phones and remote education, contact between school and household, and challenges faced by families and sampled children due to covid-19 pandemic, etc. Similarly, we collected data from sampled school teachers for school enrolment, availability of smart phones, current teaching and administrative work, teaching-learning material, interaction with parents and community, and challenges faced during the pandemic. |
| Type Of Material | Physiological assessment or outcome measure |
| Year Produced | 2023 |
| Provided To Others? | Yes |
| Impact | Not yet. But the data developed through this will help in examining the situation of remote learning, and children's and teachers' education-related activities during school closures. |
| URL | https://dx.doi.org/10.5255/UKDA-SN-856280 |
| Title | Endline survey to measure children's learning and enrolment status after the Covid-19 pandemic |
| Description | The final survey collected information on the sample children's enrolment status and assessed their learning levels after the pandemic. |
| Type Of Material | Physiological assessment or outcome measure |
| Year Produced | 2023 |
| Provided To Others? | Yes |
| Impact | Not yet. But the data collected through this tool will help in examining the effect of school closures on children's learning. |
| URL | https://dx.doi.org/10.5255/UKDA-SN-856280 |
| Title | Midline survey on key stakeholders perceptions, attitides and actions towards children's learning |
| Description | As part of the longitudinal experimental design, we generated a midline survey which captures the key stakeholders perceptions on children's learning, their attitudes and actions, as well as a measurement of children's learning outcomes. The midline survey is important to track any changes in these stakeholders' perceptions, attitudes and actions which is the result of the number of activities by the intervention designed to increase accountability for learning. |
| Type Of Material | Physiological assessment or outcome measure |
| Year Produced | 2023 |
| Provided To Others? | Yes |
| Impact | Not yet as currently data is being collected |
| URL | https://reshare.ukdataservice.ac.uk/856280/ |
| Title | Qualitative methods to understand perceptions, involvement and experiences of school and community actors in the intervention and children's learning |
| Description | The study employs qualitative methodology. Within this, semi structured interviews and focused group discussions were used with teachers, parents, volunteers and any other influential person in the village. The interviews are spread over the course of three to four months, starting November 2019 to March 2020. Teachers- Questions related to background and experience in teaching, types of and views on interactions with community and teachers, views on children's learning, involvement in the intervention were asked. Parents- Questions related to educational history; child and her/his education, views and interactions with school; involvement as well as expectation from the intervention programme were asked. Volunteers- Question related to questions related to educational history; reasons for joining the intervention and work with child; interactions with school and general involvement as well as expectation from the intervention programme. Influential Person- Questions related to ask questions related to educational history and that of the larger village; views on education and motivations for joining, involvement in as well as expectation from the intervention programme. Field teams- Questions related to the receptivity and uptake of the intervention in order to shortlist villages/locations for the qualitative study as well as understand the overall response from the stakeholders towards the intervention activities. |
| Type Of Material | Physiological assessment or outcome measure |
| Year Produced | 2019 |
| Provided To Others? | No |
| Impact | The semi structured interviews helped gain an understanding into the educational history of community , their views and opinions on interaction with the school, their understanding of children's learning as well as provided insights into how different stakeholders are getting involved in the intervention which couldn't be captured through the quantitative survey. The focused group discussions helped in understanding the different dimensions of responsiveness of actors to the intervention programme. |
| Title | Survey to assess perceptions, attitudes and actions for learning |
| Description | Development of survey instruments to assess rural households perceptions and attitudes about the learning of their children, as well as the actions undertaken by the households to engage with children's learning. Similarly, a survey took on school actors perceptions and attitudes about learning of pupils, as well as the actions undertaken in class and schools to engage with children's learning. |
| Type Of Material | Physiological assessment or outcome measure |
| Year Produced | 2023 |
| Provided To Others? | Yes |
| Impact | This is the baseline information and therefore there is not a notable impact resulting from the development of this research tool yet. |
| URL | https://reshare.ukdataservice.ac.uk/856280/ |
| Title | Baseline data on Accountability for Learning |
| Description | Data on stakeholders (households, schools and communities) perceptions, attitudes and actions for learning was collected in 400 rural villates of Uttar Pradesh. Data was also collected to assess children's foundational skills in literacy and numeracy. This is the baseline data for the project which was collected between October-December 2018. |
| Type Of Material | Database/Collection of data |
| Year Produced | 2023 |
| Provided To Others? | Yes |
| Impact | There is no impact yet to inform as the data has just been collected |
| URL | https://reshare.ukdataservice.ac.uk/856280/ |
| Title | Covid-19 Phone Survey data on Accountability for Learning |
| Description | This data was collected, in 400 rural villages of Uttar Pradesh (India), to track the sampled children's households and teachers through a phone survey to capture the status of education-related activities during school closures. This data was collected between October and November 2021. We collected data from sampled household on children's current enrolment status, education support through home and paid tuition, availability of smart phones and remote education, contact between school and household, and challenges faced by families and sampled children due to covid-19 pandemic, etc. Similarly, we collected data from sampled school teachers for school enrolment, availability of smart phones, current teaching and administrative work, teaching-learning material, interaction with parents and community, and challenges faced during the pandemic. |
| Type Of Material | Database/Collection of data |
| Year Produced | 2023 |
| Provided To Others? | Yes |
| Impact | Not observed as of yet. But this dataset can be used to assess the children's enrolment status, remote education, education support through home and paid tuition, and other educational activities during the school closures. It can also be used to assess the challenges faced by households and teachers during the Covid-19 pandemic. |
| URL | https://dx.doi.org/10.5255/UKDA-SN-856280 |
| Title | Endline data on Accountability for Learning |
| Description | This is the endline data for the project which was collected between December 2021 and January 2022, to track the children's enrolment status and foundational literacy and numeracy skills after the Covid-19 pandemic. |
| Type Of Material | Database/Collection of data |
| Year Produced | 2023 |
| Provided To Others? | Yes |
| Impact | Not observed as of yet. However, the database will help in understanding and measuring the change in children's learning after the Covid-19 pandemic. |
| URL | https://dx.doi.org/10.5255/UKDA-SN-856280 |
| Title | Midline data on accountability for learning |
| Description | Data on stakeholders (households, schools and communities) perceptions, attitudes and actions for learning was collected in 400 rural villages of Uttar Pradesh.These included teacher survey, head teacher survey and household survey. Data on tracking the child over the past year, school information, teacher listing, classroom observation and household roster was also collected. Data was also collected to assess children's foundational skills in literacy and numeracy. Teacher survey also included questions related to the awareness of activities in the village and teachers involvement in the same. This was for the teachers belonging to schools that are a part of PAHAL+ programme. This is the midline data for the project which was collected between December 2019 to February 2020, a year after the baseline data. |
| Type Of Material | Database/Collection of data |
| Year Produced | 2023 |
| Provided To Others? | Yes |
| Impact | No impact as such. However, the database will help in understanding and measuring the differences in perceptions and attitudes of stakeholders over period of one year as well as change in children's learning. |
| URL | https://dx.doi.org/10.5255/UKDA-SN-856280 |
| Title | Qualitative data on teachers, community members and field staff - Phase 1 |
| Description | The case study dataset includes data from 4 villages within the PAHAL+ intervention treatment group read across 3 blocks in study site. Phase 1 includes 17 semi-structured interviews with the teachers (head teachers, regular teachers and para-teachers), 2 observations of schools. The number of schools in the dataset is 6, spread across 4 villages and 3 blocks. Within the community, focused group discussions were conducted with 34 mothers, 24 volunteers and 10 community representatives. Apart from this, there is village level information that describes the village spatially, demographically and in terms of facilities and access. |
| Type Of Material | Data analysis technique |
| Year Produced | 2019 |
| Provided To Others? | No |
| Impact | No impact as of now. The dataset is currently in use for fulfilling the objectives of the intervention study. |
| Description | MoU with the Department of Basic Education, Uttar Pradesh, India |
| Organisation | Government of Uttar Pradesh |
| Country | India |
| Sector | Public |
| PI Contribution | Significantly improve learning outcomes in basic reading and arithmetic for children in primary grades (Our teams are working with the state government from end to end- from planning, to providing content, conducting state level trainings, and more. Strengthen the academic support capacities of the government supervising cadre for effective implementation of the program. (We have worked with the government to train and prepare a cadre of DRPs and BRPs, introduced an app based data entry system, etc.) |
| Collaborator Contribution | The partner has allowed that all teachers of basic education in Uttar Pradesh to be trained followig the methodology of teaching at the right level, using the materials provided. Furthermore, Pratham partnered with District Institutes of Education and Training (DIETs), the government teacher training institutions, in 75 districts of UP, in July 2020, to facilitate DIET students to conduct remote teaching-learning activities with children in primary and upper primary grades. Practice teaching is part of the pre-service teacher training curriculum, and this activity involved about 19,000 DIET students who in turn worked with about 1 million children in grades 1-2 and 6-8. As part of the Mission Prerna E-Paathshala (e-school) program initiated by the government of UP, Pratham and the government of UP collaborated to produce a state-wide radio program, airing for 30 minutes a day, 7 days a week. Episodes included activities such as rhymes, stories, and games around alphabets, words, and numbers, and referenced messages and activities that Pratham teams were sharing with families via phone. About 100 such episodes were created in all. |
| Impact | There are 2.2 million schools in Uttar Pradesh, around 70% of these are government schools and around 89% are located in rural areas. The collaboration means providing cascade training to more than 4 million teachers working in government schools, primarily in rural areas. For the partnership with District Institutes of Education and Training (DIETs) in July 2020, this activity involved about 19,000 DIET students who in turn worked with about 1 million children in grades 1-2 and 6-8. For the Mission Prerna E-Paathshala (e-school) program initiated by the government of UP, Pratham produced 100 episodes for radio programmes during the pandemic. Episodes included activities such as rhymes, stories, and games around alphabets, words, and numbers, and referenced messages for mobile phones. |
| Start Year | 2018 |
| Description | (Integration Seminar on Case studies)Session Title: Developing Methodologies and conducting research in multiple contexts |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Undergraduate students |
| Results and Impact | The workshop was conducted to familiarise students with different types of case study designs and methods employed for the same. I discussed the study design and how the PhD is embedded within a broader intervention study, detailing the advantages as well challenges associated with such a design. It drew interests of students on, especially the methodology section where questions were raised about adaptations made within the study to match the timeline of the broader intervention study. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2020 |
| Description | Accountability Toward Ensuring Children's Basic Learning: The Head Teacher's Perceptions : Chihiro Kobayashi |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Postgraduate students |
| Results and Impact | Head teachers can improve school climate through school leadership and management, empowerment of teachers, and encouragement of students. However, while the role of head teachers is crucial to fulfilling school accountability, particularly towards achieving learning for all, data from rural India indicates that children's learning outcomes remain low and stagnated. Since many children are not learning, this raises an important question: are head teachers aware of this situation? In light of this central question, this research focuses on understanding head teacher's 'perceptions' particularly concerning children's learning and the factors which may influence how head teachers perceive the situation in rural India. Adopting the Reasoned Action Approach by Fishbein and Ajzen, this study ultimately aims to predict head teacher's actions, and therefore we explore their perceptions towards children's learning as the first step in this presentation. In particular, we raise the following questions: 1) To what extent do head teachers perceive learning challenges in the schools they lead? 2) To what extent are the differences in head teachers' perceptions associated with their key background characteristics (particularly gender, caste, location and years of experience)? and 3) Have the head teachers' perceptions towards children's learning changed as a result of an intervention aimed to enhance accountability relations? To investigate these questions, the paper uses data collected from around 850 primary public schools in 400 villages in the district of Sitapur, Uttar Pradesh, India between 2018 and 2020. Analyses using the baseline survey data show that the majority of the head teachers perceived no serious learning problems in their schools and thought that children achieve the required learning for their grade. Yet, test scores results reveal that a significant proportion of children attending grades 2 to 4 of these primary schools were unable to perform even the most basic numeracy or literacy tasks. These results suggest that most head teachers tend to overestimate children's learning. However, head teachers with more experience and those who do not have children are more likely to be aware of learning problems. Furthermore, female head teachers and those who are officially designated (rather than acting) head teachers are more likely to recognize that children are promoted without learning in their schools. Between the baseline and midline, we find statistically significant changes in perceptions among head teachers. In particular, the proportion of head teachers who perceive that children were not learning declined. In addition, the proportion of head teachers who perceive that children were promoted without learning also declined. The results of an RCT design show that areas where there was an intervention to increase accountability see the largest change in the proportion of head teachers who responded that children were promoted without learning. This was not the case for the proportion of head teachers who perceived that children were not learning, as changes in this indicator remained the same across treatment and control schools. Understanding the school leader's perceptions of learning is important to generate a sense of social responsibility towards children's learning. Unless school actors perceive there is a problem, actions are unlikely to change. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2021 |
| Description | Blog on Intervention |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Engagement focused website, blog or social media channel |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Postgraduate students |
| Results and Impact | To demonstrate the activities being carried out by of by Pratham, one of the largest NGOs in India working to provide quality education to underprivileged children. The activity is called Halla Bol, which means "make some noise" and its aim is to communicate the key message to the community that a child's learning is everyone's responsibility. Influencing parents' and teachers' perceptions about a child's learning is one of the main aims of Pratham's school and community interventions; actively seeking to demonstrate to parents and families the role they have to play in supporting children. This could include ensuring regular school attendance; taking the child to school to ensure that the child is indeed attending; discussing the child's learning progress with teachers; or making sure that the child is engaging with after school activities, reading groups, library programmes, and the completion of homework. Within schools, Pratham is supporting teachers by tackling some of the constraints that teachers face in terms of distances to work, and institutional regulations for completion of curricula. For example, teachers are encouraged to support children's participation in volunteer activities, as well as to collaborate with volunteers in the planning of Halla Bol, and other strategies to increase school attendance. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2019 |
| URL | https://www.theimpactinitiative.net/blog/blog-make-some-noise-so-no-one-left-behind-halla-bol |
| Description | Building back equitably with parents: what leads to greater parental involvement for marginalised households in rural India - Laura Cashman |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | A presentation at an international academic conference to demonstrate findings from the study under a symposia titled 'Reimagining roles of community and family' |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2021 |
| Description | Collaboration in Education after Covid-19. Expert panel presentation. Presented at the Centre for Innovation and Research in Learning, Eton College, 24 June 2020 |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Schools |
| Results and Impact | Collaboration in education, nationally and internationally, is an area where we are likely to see major changes following the pandemic. Effective collaboration offers the means for improving education in terms of educational development, innovation, reform, research and strategy, and the sharing and development of resources. Important issues include the opportunities that an increase in virtual education provides for ISSPs ('virtual ISSPs'), and strategies for providing educational opportunities in areas with very limited access to technology, such as radio-based lessons and professional development. We shared our lessons on collaboration between schools and communities as part of the ESRC-FDCO project on "Accountability from the Grassroots". |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2020 |
| URL | https://etoncirl.podbean.com/e/collaboration-in-education-after-covid-19-international-collaboration... |
| Description | Community Engagement: Lessons from the PAHAL intervention led by Pratham Team |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Postgraduate students |
| Results and Impact | Students from the MPhil programme in Education, Globalisation and International Development had a session on "community mobilisation and parental support for educational provision". The work of the project is central to community mobilisation and parental support, as well as accountability relations with school actors. Mr Arjun Agarwal and Mr Faiyaz Ahmed, from Pratham and members of the implementation team, engaged as an expert panel during this workshop with students at the University of Cambridge. Students were given the following questions for discussion: 1) When discussing about community mobilisation, who do we refer to as the community? Is community mobilisation for education important (why or why not)? What forms of community mobilisation are you familiar with? What are the main enablers and constraints of community participation in education? A presentation was then given to the students on the main lessons learned from the PAHAL intervention. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2020 |
| URL | https://www.educ.cam.ac.uk/courses/graduate/masters/themes/globalisation/egid-programme2020-21.pdf |
| Description | Conference presentation |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Postgraduate students |
| Results and Impact | Dr Wilima Wadhwa paper on "Schools' Accountability for Learning Strengthened from the Grassroots" was selected as for presentation at the UKFIET 2019 conference. Dr Wadhwa paper focused on the strength of the accountability relations with respect to learning and the views of stakeholders for who is responsible for children's learning. Her presentation was central to the theme of the conference on the Future of Inclusive Education Systems. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2019 |
| URL | https://www.ukfiet.org/cop/2019-ukfiet-conference/ |
| Description | Covid-19 and Closing the Gap. Expert panel webinar presentation. Presented at the Cambridge University Press Education Reform (CER), Cambridge University Press, 30 July 2020 |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | Online webinar, focusing on how countries and organisations are responding to the education gap caused by the Covid-19 pandemic. In particular, we want to discuss the ways that the medium and long term responses are being implemented. For this expert panel, we focused on the responses undertaken as part of our ESRC-FCDO funded project "Accountability from the Grassroots". |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2020 |
| URL | https://www.orielsquare.co.uk/blog/index.php/2020/10/07/engaging-schools-and-communities-to-support-... |
| Description | Creating stronger community engagement for children's learning: Understanding drivers and limitations of sustainable and effective programs : Purnima and Ankita |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Study participants or study members |
| Results and Impact | In India, children's education is considered to be the primary responsibility of schools and teachers. Families and communities in rural India perceive themselves as incapable of contributing to children's learning owing to issues related to poverty and low education. These issues are exacerbated further for women due to an array of socio-cultural and gender norms that restrict their mobility and interaction with members inside and outside the community. It is therefore crucial to understand how programs can enable or, conversely, create barriers for successful and sustainable community engagement for improving children's education and learning. This paper draws on discussions with 19 volunteers and 34 mothers as part of a school-community engagement program in Sitapur, India. The intervention included mobilising and training volunteers to conduct classes with children, organising village meetings on the issue of learning, and other activities to engage parents. The paper discusses volunteers' motivations and mothers' views regarding the program, their interaction with each other and the program staff as well as drivers and challenges encountered in achieving greater community engagement. Volunteers in this program are youth from villages, largely though not always young women pursuing education or with at least elementary schooling. For most volunteers, this was the first time they were volunteering and working in their communities. These discussions reveal that volunteer's interactions with program staff and the experience gained in trainings, conducting surveys, learning assessments and teaching children helped instil greater self-confidence, particularly among young women. But the motivation to volunteer appeared to wane after an initial period owing to challenges like the absence of monetary benefits, absenteeism among children and lack of support from parents. Female volunteers in particular found it challenging to surmount restrictive gender norms governing their mobility and interactions with community members. On the other hand, while all mothers interviewed for this study were appreciative of the program, particularly the additional learning support to children, their role in the program was restricted to sending children to classes. This limited role, along with religious, caste and educational differences between volunteers and mothers result in little to no interaction between these stakeholders as well as the absence of community ownership of the program. Interestingly, both volunteers' and mothers' interactions with program staff indicate the importance given to 'outsiders' in catalysing and motivating change within communities. Further, reflections from a parent-teacher meeting reveal the scope and appetite that mothers have for contributing to children's education, and indicate that small-group networks may go much further towards achieving greater parental involvement among rural, poorly educated mothers than larger village-level activities. By highlighting how community actors in this program engaged with each other, the program staff and the issue of children's learning, this paper helps to think about how family and community interventions for children's education can 'stick'. Specifically, such programs should allocate a central role for families and parents, and take into account socio-cultural norms governing relationships and interactions in the community in order to circumvent the challenges arising from them. Impact? |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2021 |
| Description | Do teachers know their students? Exploring the alignment between teachers' perceptions of children's learning and children's actual learning: Pratik Wadmare |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Study participants or study members |
| Results and Impact | Teachers' accurate judgement of children's learning levels is crucial to raise academic achievements for the most marginalised, particularly in the context where children are enrolled in school but not learning. Accurate judgement is important for targeted and child-centred pedagogy, classroom management practices, innovative utilisation of educational materials, use of peer-support methods to help those pupils lagging behind, and communication with parents. In the context of India, few studies have explored the accuracy of teachers' judgement of children's learning levels. The Continuous and Comprehensive Evaluation (CCE) model introduced in 2009 aims to reduce the pressure of summative assessments on students. Besides, it has the potential to improve instructional practices by making teachers aware of children's low learning levels. However, the programme has a strong focus on administrative reporting and it is unclear that in practice teachers are using assessments to understand the learning levels of their pupils. For instance, Sinha, Banerji and Wadhwa (2016) find that less than 3% teachers could analyse their students' work and understand the learning gaps, in a study conducted in Bihar schools. It is in this context that our paper is situated. We primarily explore the magnitude of the alignment/misalignment between teacher's judgement and children's actual learning levels, by matching the teacher's perception with the actual learning level of the child. Some of the questions the paper addresses are: which teachers are more likely to know the learning levels of their pupils? Do these teachers hold different perceptions of all children's learning? Our analysis uses data collected as part of an intervention aimed to increase foundational learning in rural India and understand the role of different stakeholders in supporting children's learning. The sample includes 23,970 children in grades 2,3 and 4 assessed in foundational reading and numeracy skills and 1,844 teachers in 850 government primary schools in 400 villages, in Sitapur district of the state of Uttar Pradesh. We find that one out of every three teachers is misaligned with her pupils' reading skills. Many factors affect teachers' judgement-accuracy. It varies by teacher type: contract teachers are more likely to have better judgement than regular teachers or headmasters. Additionally, teachers teaching fewer classes are more likely to have a better judgement. Teachers' perceptions of children's learning levels in general predict their judgement-accuracy regarding specific children as well. Teachers who reported that their students cannot read their Hindi textbooks or they cannot solve two-digit subtraction by the time they reach 4th grade have better judgement than those reporting otherwise. Teachers' judgement-accuracy also varies with children's characteristics. Teachers judge the reading skills of younger children and those from comparatively poorer backgrounds more accurately. Teacher's misalignment with learning abilities of children in her class is a key bottleneck in raising children's learning outcomes. Our paper not only sheds light on the magnitude of this problem in the Indian context but also attempts to uncover what might contribute to this misalignment. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2021 |
| Description | Fieldwork Experience |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Engagement focused website, blog or social media channel |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Postgraduate students |
| Results and Impact | Blog to describe the experience of undertaking fieldwork as part of a research project from the PhD student who is undertaking her PhD as part of the research |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2018 |
| URL | http://fersacambridge.com/2018/11/26/what-ensures-good-quality-data |
| Description | Impact of interventions aimed at strengthening community engagement to raise children's foundational learning in India |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Postgraduate students |
| Results and Impact | In this paper presentation, we share the main findings of the project and discuss how community-school partnerships can improve children's foundational learning potential by providing experimental evidence from rural India. We have also discussed about the potential mechanisms through which the community-participation can improve children's learning. After the presentation, we received positive feedback, comments, and suggestions. This has also helped in improving this working paper substantially. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2022 |
| URL | https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/real-centre-seminar-deepak-kumar-aser-and-ricardo-sabates-real-centre... |
| Description | Internal discussion with intervention team in Uttar Pradesh |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Local |
| Primary Audience | Study participants or study members |
| Results and Impact | At an internal planning session of the team running the intervention for this study, members of the research team presented key baseline findings; discussed progress of the intervention; and discussed parameters that could be used to reflect on progress towards meeting the objectives of the intervention in study locations. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2019 |
| Description | Learning is everyones responsibilities : Rukmini Banerji, Arjun Agarwal, Amit Kumar Singh, Nuzhat Malik, Faiyaz Ahmed |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Postgraduate students |
| Results and Impact | Education programs in India have focused on improving learning outcomes through interventions situated inside classrooms. Few models have approached children's learning in an ecological framework, connecting schools, families, and communities. Doing so has several challenges. Literature suggests that school actors tend to view their primary accountability to lie with administrative and political representatives. Further, in developing country contexts, formal processes bringing school and community actors together are often relegated to paper structures with little real engagement. Low parental education and other disadvantages mean that parents often underestimate the role they themselves can play in children's learning, both within their homes and through interaction with teachers. This paper examines one initiative-designed and implemented by the NGO Pratham-that attempts to engage school, family, and community actors to support children's learning. Implemented in 300 villages in Uttar Pradesh, the PAHAL ('Pratham's Action in Home And Learning', which also means initiative in Hindi) intervention aims to improve foundational learning by raising awareness across stakeholders and also fostering individual and collaborative action both inside and outside the traditional classroom. Prior to school shutdowns due to COVID, elements of this intervention were also being implemented in thousands of communities across India where Pratham had a presence. The paper draws on conversations with PAHAL implementation teams and is structured in three sections. The first part reflects on lessons learned from trying to build an atmosphere of learning in homes and villages. For instance, the intervention in communities intended to strengthen social structures that drove awareness, changed perceptions, and helped families take ownership of their children's education. As part of the initiative, rapid assessments in foundational reading and arithmetic were conducted to create awareness and mobilise support. These paved way for volunteer-led camps for the most disadvantaged, as well as children's groups overseen by parents or older siblings that facilitated habit formation around regular study. Over time, intervention teams identified important adaptations to planned activities enabling better targeting and engagement. In addition, in a subset of villages the intervention also worked with schools, engaging teachers through demonstration of simple methods and materials and organising informal school-community interactions. This made the program highly susceptible to the kinds of disruptions to school systems that are endemic in many parts of the global south, for a variety of reasons and in a variety of ways. Given that their consequences are rarely addressed in the context of interventions in the education space, the second part of the paper discusses impact of external factors on program implementation that disrupted planned activities in these locations. The final section of the paper briefly describes how the program evolved and adapted in response to COVID-19. In doing so, it outlines how simple and cost-effective solutions (both digital and otherwise) were harnessed to continue engagement with the community of volunteers, parents, and teachers during these difficult times. In this manner, while there remain obstacles to helping local actors engage with children's education, the paper will spotlight learnings from one such attempt to overcome this problem. Impact- |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2021 |
| Description | Online masterclass on "Reimagining learning during crisis" |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | Pratham staff presented and discussed key lessons learned from their experiences with education interventions to reimagine education during and after the pandemic. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2020 |
| URL | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d_Dx4BakuZ4&ab_channel=ArthanCareers |
| Description | Opportunities and challenges of South-North partnerships for educational reform |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | The past two decades has seen a surge of engagement and investment in South-North research collaborations driven by the Sustainable Development Goals. Literature attests to the strong potential for reciprocal advantages that such collaborations can bring. While recommendations for undertaking such research partnerships abound, most examples do not necessarily consider the perspectives of researchers and other stakeholders across contexts. This talk aimed to address such gaps by discussing the experiences and learnings from three South-North research partnerships, in collaboration with foundations, governments and NGOs. Professor Ricardo Sabates (REAL Centre, University of Cambridge) offered reflections on lessons across these partnerships in order to open up for discussion. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2022 |
| URL | https://baice.ac.uk/conf-abstract/opportunities-and-challenges-of-south-north-partnerships-for-educa... |
| Description | Opportunities and challenges of volunteer-led tutoring programs: Evidence from rural India: Ankita Jha, Poorva Shekher, Dr. Suman Bhattacharjea |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | Presented qualitative findings from the RCT study based in Uttar Pradesh, India Presented quantitative findings from the RCT study based in Uttar Pradesh, India to present the evidence of various opportunities, challenges and implications that emerge in a volunteer-led tutoring program in India. In lieu of other presentations directed by the central theme, there were some elaborate discussions around learning in times of pandemic, roles of community members and schools in the current times etc. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2021 |
| Description | Oriel Square Blog entitled: "Engaging Schools and Communities to Support Children's Learning". |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Engagement focused website, blog or social media channel |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | Ensuring that education objectives continue to be achieved both during and after the pandemic involves multiple stakeholders and diverse partnerships. With new educational needs arising, and the nature of roles changing for all involved, we turn again to the central question of accountability: how can we all work to ensure that children achieve their full learning potential? This is the topic that we engaged in this blog, which draws from evidence on the ESRC-FCDO funded research project "Accountability from the grassroots". Among the key lessons we described: (1) Tapping into the potential of households to support children with the development of foundational skills. (2) Supporting parents and communities to build on foundational skills already acquired. (3) Enabling schools to identify children's actual level of learning and meet them with learning activities designed for that level. (4) Finding new ways to communicate with and involve families and communities, as the potential for supporting learning is significant. (5) Continuing to build shared responsibility for children's learning between schools, communities and families. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2020 |
| URL | https://www.orielsquare.co.uk/blog/index.php/2020/10/07/engaging-schools-and-communities-to-support-... |
| Description | PAHAL Seminar Series: English |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Local |
| Primary Audience | Postgraduate students |
| Results and Impact | During the pandemic, we generated a seminar series called PAHAL Knowledge Series with the aim of discussing the main findings of the research and how these findings could be translated into key strategies to continue to support learning. The series took place every 2 weeks and we discussed: (1) Critical engagement with the theory of the project; (2) methods used and the relevance of the methods for future research; (3) the intervention, what were the main lessons and what we knew so far given school closures; (4) Parents as key stakeholders, their roles, perceptions, attitudes; (5) teachers and head teachers as key stakeholders; (6) main interactions of key stakeholders within the intervention; (7) steps for moving forward after schools reopen. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2020 |
| URL | https://www.educ.cam.ac.uk/centres/real/researchthemes/teachingandlearning/accountability/PAHAL%20Kn... |
| Description | PAHAL Seminar Series: Hindi |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Local |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | One important way to collaborate and share knowledge is to engage with Pratham staff who are working closely to the realities of children in rural areas. Engagement with our colleagues from Pratham required a decolonised approach to knowledge. First, we have to use mother tongue to communicate. Secondly, we have to communicate in a way that is relevant to Pratham staff. This pilot for the seminar series was our first attempt to start co-creating knowledge with Pratham staff who have been supporting the PAHAL intervention. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2020 |
| URL | https://www.educ.cam.ac.uk/centres/real/researchthemes/teachingandlearning/accountability/PAHAL%20Kn... |
| Description | PAL NETWORK blog entitled "INVOLVING THE COMMUNITY IN RAISING CHILDREN'S FOUNDATIONAL LEARNING OUTCOMES: EVIDENCE FROM INDIA" |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Engagement focused website, blog or social media channel |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | Ensuring that education objectives continue to be achieved both during and after the pandemic involves multiple stakeholders and diverse partnerships. Therefore, how can multiple stakeholders work together to ensure that children achieve their full learning potential? Through this blog, we look at the impact of the programme after a year, on raising children's foundational skills and investigating how community-school partnerships can build better accountability relationships. We first provide a brief overview and then discuss the effect of community-school partnerships on parent-teacher interactions and exposure (and participation) of children to community-based learning activities in villages. Finally, we discuss the impact of differential exposure to these learning activities on improving the children's foundational literacy and numeracy levels. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2022 |
| URL | https://palnetwork.org/india-es/involving-the-community-in-raising-childrens-foundational-learning-o... |
| Description | PAL Network Blog entitled "Parental perceptions and parental involvement in children's education in rural India: Lessons for the current COVID-19 crisis". |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Engagement focused website, blog or social media channel |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Policymakers/politicians |
| Results and Impact | Studies show that a child's education can be directly influenced by their parent's understanding of their past and current educational attainment. However, research on parental perceptions and subsequent involvement in their children's education, particularly in the Global South, is lacking. Researchers from the University of Cambridge, together with partners in India, are looking at some of the potential drivers of parental involvement in children's education in rural India, as well as how community-based accountability relationships can raise learning outcomes for the most disadvantaged primary-school learners. Our research seems relevant to the current situation in which millions of children in rural India are likely to be learning at home during the COVID-19 crisis. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2020 |
| URL | https://palnetwork.org/parental-perceptions-and-parental-involvement-in-childrens-education-in-rural... |
| Description | Presentation at Anglia Ruskin University: School Community interactions and children's learning in rural India: A case study design to understand teachers views and perceptions. |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Local |
| Primary Audience | Undergraduate students |
| Results and Impact | The seminar was for undergraduate students at Anglia Ruskin University studying sociology. The purpose of the seminar was to introduce real world research- the challenges and outcomes drawn from conducting primary data collection in rural setup in India. The students were interested in knowing more about the reaction of teachers when approached for interviews. I discussed the ethical dilemmas of the research study led to further questions and interests about working of organisations working in education sector in India. The discussions were around Pratham's work and questions were raised about the project. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2020 |
| Description | Presentation to Pratham leaders |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Other audiences |
| Results and Impact | Dr Wilima Wadhwa, member of the research team for this project, presented key findings from the baseline data collection round at an internal Pratham workshop attended by state and program leaders from all over the country. The presentation was followed by extensive discussion with the participants on the significance of these findings and ways of addressing them in the field. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2019 |
| Description | RLO Annual Workshop |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | Attend the ESRC-DFID Raising Learning Outcomes in Education Systems (RLO) Programme Annual Workshop to find commonalities in findings on factors that enable or inhibit progression in learning and explore potential future collaborations between our grant and the other grantholders. We also shared our programme and methods and identified collaborations across the RLO programme. We also received information and training to enhance our engagement with policymakers, non-academics and therefore communicate the research and maximise impact. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2019 |
| Description | RLO workshop |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Policymakers/politicians |
| Results and Impact | The workshop was intended to disseminate the design and findings of 7 research studies supported by DFID-ESRC under the Raising Learning Outcomes calls. In addition to members from the seven research teams, prominent government, university, and NGO stakeholders in the field of education were invited to attend. The event included an overview of the objectives, brief presentations on each participating project, an extensive discussion with a panel of experts, and a Q&A session with the audience. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2019 |
| Description | Rebuilding with mothers as partners: How and why do mothers engage in children's education in rural India: Laura Cashman and Preeti Manchanda |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | As we begin the process of rebuilding our education system, we believe that mothers can continue to play a vital role in their children's education. The presentation throws light on some of the factors and limitations that contribute to the kind of engagement mothers have with children's learning. We hope that this can be used to devise efficient ways for better involvement of mothers in improving their child's education. The presentation at the PAL Conference also led to a paper written up for a book chapter for their upcoming book. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2021,2022 |
| Description | Reflexive approaches to survey design and implementation: Lessons from research on communities and schools in rural India. REAL Centre Seminar Series |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Postgraduate students |
| Results and Impact | Like almost all methods in the broader realm of quantitative social science, surveys are typically judged according to their 'robustness'. Survey research's primary goal - generalizing trends in conditions, attitudes and opinions from the observations at hand to a broader population has led, understandably, to a focus on probabilistic sampling, item validity, and accurate data collection processes. In this seminar we argue that standardized procedures and tools can also be counterproductive if adhered to too strictly. This is especially likely to be the case when conducting surveys in contexts that differ notably from those in which the majority of standardized practices have been honed over time, namely the Global North. In this presentation we identify and unpack assumptions required to undertake quantitative research and describe how the research design was adapted to the realities of the context and of the respondents involved. This seminar was part of the REAL Centre Seminar Series, attended by graduate and post-graduate students who reported their interest in decolonising quantitative methodologies. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2020 |
| URL | https://www.educ.cam.ac.uk/centres/real/researchthemes/teachingandlearning/accountability/Reflexive%... |
| Description | School Community interactions and children's learning in rural Sitapur - Mansi Nanda |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Study participants or study members |
| Results and Impact | About 15 people from different universities and organisations attended the talk. The session was around re-thinking the education workforce post COVID-19. The purpose of the presentation was to share the initial findings from the on going PhD study. The presentation highlighted the contrasts between teachers intended outcomes from interactions with parents vs the practices they follow. The presentation highlighted a need to focus on how policy messages are interpreted by the teachers and sparked discussions around teacher motivations and building teacher networks. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2021 |
| Description | School community interactions and children's learning in rural Sitapur, India : A qualitative case study design to understand primary school teachers' views and perceptions |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Regional |
| Primary Audience | Undergraduate students |
| Results and Impact | The undergraduates at Delhi University attended the talk. The purpose of the presentation was to show the various aspects of research and share the learnings from collecting primary data and navigating through the system while doing the same. The students found the presentation engaging and had questions related to conducting research that is credible. Some students had increasing interest in conducting qualitative study and got in touch for suggestions around their topics of research. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2020 |
| URL | https://www.linkedin.com/posts/activity-6723172402584399873-j9Yr |
| Description | Seminar on Teacher Motivation and Engagement with the Community in Rural India |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Local |
| Primary Audience | Postgraduate students |
| Results and Impact | Mansi Nanda engaged with graduate students at the Faculty of Education to discuss plans for research on motivations and engagement of teachers with communities in Rural India. The FERSA Grad Seminars are geared at enhancing peer support for research, suggest ideas and innovative ways to continue with the doctoral research. This is an important engagement for Mansi Nanda who holds the PhD studentship associated with the award. It is also important to note that Mansi Nanda has passed her Registration Viva and hence it is considered fully registered as PhD. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2019 |
| URL | https://twitter.com/Mansinanda91/status/1126411838135132160?s=20 |
| Description | The Impact of siblings on learning: Evidence from rural India: Preeti Manchanda, Purnima Ramanujan & Benjamin Alcott |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Postgraduate students |
| Results and Impact | Presented quantitative findings from the RCT study based in Uttar Pradesh, India to demonstrate the significance of siblings on young children's foundational learning. Along with other presentations under the "Reimagining roles of community and family" theme, it set off some really interesting discussion on children's learning amidst the pandemic and what role community and teachers can play post the pandemic. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2021 |
| Description | The role of parental perceptions and parental involvement in children's learning : Laura, Preeti |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Study participants or study members |
| Results and Impact | Decades of research highlight the potential influence of parents' educational involvement on children's learning outcomes. These researchers contend that by examining the potential motivators of involvement, we can understand which parents become involved in their children's educational journey and why. Research in recent years finds that several different parent-, teacher-, school- and child-level characteristics influence parental involvement. These include parental perceptions of their children's learning or, in other words, their estimates of their child's current learning attainment. However, research on the mediating effect of perceptions on involvement levels is primarily situated in the Global North and evidence from low- and middle-income countries, particularly rural contexts, is limited. If involvement levels are indeed mediated by perceptions in these contexts, this needs to be highlighted to allow policy-makers and practitioners to make appropriate adaptations when working with communities. This paper uses data from over 20,000 households surveyed at baseline and midline as part of an ongoing evaluation of a program in rural Uttar Pradesh. The intervention aims to improve school and community actors' perceptions of and engagement towards children's learning. The first part of the paper will discuss results from an OLS regression and interaction analysis using baseline data to explore parental involvement in education in rural Sitapur, particularly the mediating effect that parental perceptions of children's learning have on involvement. We will then present the results of a fixed effects analysis that considers changes in parental involvement over the course of the intervention, controlling for several other characteristics including parental perceptions of children's learning, gender and affluence. Preliminary analyses demonstrate important ways in which parental involvement influences children's learning outcomes in reading and maths. When considering the interaction between this association and parental perceptions of children's learning, we find that children with parents who hold a low or uncertain perception of their learning have similar learning outcomes to each other, irrespective of the parent's involvement levels. However, among children whose parents who hold a high perception of their learning, higher parental involvement levels is linked to higher learning outcomes. In addition, our analyses demonstrate that overall parental involvement levels significantly increased from baseline to midline. Yet, when we account for parental perceptions, the positive change in parental involvement becomes no longer statistically significant, indicating that parental perceptions could be a key driver of involvement. These preliminary findings also suggest that programmes and policies need to account for the differing and interacting influence of parental perceptions and involvement on children's learning. Interventions in rural India should not only focus on making parents more aware of their children's learning, but also stress that all children can learn, in order to create a conducive environment for learning and thriving in families and communities. Impact??- |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2021 |
| Description | UKFIET 2021: Contrasting teachers' expectation and practices of interaction with parents in Rural India-Mansi Nanda |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Engagement focused website, blog or social media channel |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Postgraduate students |
| Results and Impact | The blog was written post presenting at the UKFIET conference in September 2021 to rach a wider audience. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2021 |
| URL | https://www.ukfiet.org/2021/contrasting-teachers-expectation-and-practices-of-interactions-with-pare... |
| Description | UKFIET blog entitled "INVOLVING THE COMMUNITY IN RAISING CHILDREN'S FOUNDATIONAL LEARNING OUTCOMES: EVIDENCE FROM INDIA" |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Engagement focused website, blog or social media channel |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | Ensuring that education objectives continue to be achieved both during and after the pandemic involves multiple stakeholders and diverse partnerships. Therefore, how can multiple stakeholders work together to ensure that children achieve their full learning potential? Through this blog, we look at the impact of the programme after a year, on raising children's foundational skills and investigating how community-school partnerships can build better accountability relationships. We first provide a brief overview and then discuss the effect of community-school partnerships on parent-teacher interactions and exposure (and participation) of children to community-based learning activities in villages. Finally, we discuss the impact of differential exposure to these learning activities on improving the children's foundational literacy and numeracy levels. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2022 |
| URL | https://www.ukfiet.org/2022/involving-the-community-in-raising-childrens-foundational-learning-outco... |
| Description | UKFIET blog entitled "PARENTAL INVOLVEMENT CONTINUES TO BE CENTRAL FOR REDUCING SCHOOL DROPOUT: EVIDENCE FROM INDIA DURING THE PANDEMIC" |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Engagement focused website, blog or social media channel |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | The Covid-19 pandemic led to the closure of schools and lockdowns in India between 2020 and 2021. For many children, being out of school meant lack of engagement with teachers as well as the inability to receive school meals and some immunisation services. Unfortunately, many children did not return to school once the COVID 19 pandemic was under control, and this is particularly the case for children living in less affluent states. But what can we learn about the role of parents during school closures and their influence on reducing the likelihood of school dropout? The blog was written to share the study outcomes with the wider audience regarding the parental involvement and children's school dropout after the covid-19 pandemic. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2022 |
| URL | https://www.ukfiet.org/2022/parental-involvement-continues-to-be-central-for-reducing-school-dropout... |
| Description | UKFIET blog entitled "Think Local: Support for learning during COVID-19 could be found from within communities" |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Engagement focused website, blog or social media channel |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Policymakers/politicians |
| Results and Impact | Given school closures due to the COVID-19 pandemic, we engaged with the community to share lessons from the research that we were undertaking in engagement with communities to continue to support learning while schools were closed. We informed lessons learnt from the project on how can we unleash the potential of volunteers to serve their communities, particularly in terms of their role as intermediaries between information or availability of educational materials and the use of these by parents in children's homes. We also focused on the massive potential for parents to support the education of their children, which is likely to take place in mother tongue and use less traditional methods for knowledge sharing and practices. Finally, we highlighted the role of volunteers, local facilitators, parents and other community leaders in supporting most children who were out of school during that time. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2020 |
| URL | https://www.ukfiet.org/2020/think-local-support-for-learning-during-covid-19-could-be-found-from-wit... |
| Description | Understanding teachers' perceptions of children's learning and interaction with the families |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Postgraduate students |
| Results and Impact | Global evidence pointing to the advantages of a strong school-community linkage leading to better school achievement (Epstein, 2011). Research on school community partnerships in India has been limited to community mobilisation within the institutional structures such as the School Management Committee. Intervention studies have targeted the members of these committees, especially from the side of the community in raising awareness about their roles and responsibilities through information campaigns (Banerjee et al, 2008; Pandey et al., 2008), empowering them to ensure monitoring of the schools (Gowda et al., 2014) and encouraging them to actively participate in dialogue with the school teachers (Galab et al., 2013). However, an important aspect of teachers' views, their perceptions and challenges around interacting with the surrounding community, in particular parents has received less attention. To utilise the strengths of institutional arrangements that aim to build school community partnerships, to ensure buy-in and at the same time minimise opposition from the school actors, it is important to understand how they perceive the role of communities in children's learning and how such interactions affect them. Drawing on semi-structured in- depth interviews with 17 primary school teachers including head masters, regular teachers and contract teachers across 6 study sites, this paper unpacks the experiences of teachers in the context of government primary schools in rural Sitapur district in India. Specifically, it will discuss the purpose and intent behind teachers' interactions with the community and parents of children they teach. Alongside this, it will reflect on how teachers think about their as well as community/parents' role in children's learning. The key questions raised by this work are: a) What are the various ways in which teachers interact with the parents? What are the intended and actual outcomes from the interactions? b) What do teachers identify as the key points of tension between schools and the surrounding community? c) How do teachers perceive community, parents and their own role in children's learning? The results highlight attendance and regularity of children, parental involvement with their children at home and "understanding the children better" as the areas that were affected positively due to interactions. Although teachers perceive these interactions to be useful in some ways, they often find themselves demotivated to continue due to resource and time constraints as well as lack of participation of parents. The system driven reasons for interactions are mostly for fulfilling official paperwork, while the self- driven reasons are mostly carried out to ensure cordial relations between the teachers and parents. Crucially, interactions for the purpose of providing or coordinating support for children's learning are rarely mentioned. Overall, an understanding of teacher's perspectives on interactions between schools and the community is very relevant at a time when schools have been closed for more than 6 months due to the global pandemic. While understanding the benefits teachers derived from interactions can help in keeping them motivated, highlighting the challenges faced by teachers could be helpful in supporting them better when the school reopen. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2021 |
| Description | Unpacking mothers' conceptions of education and learning Presenters: Ankita Jha and Poorva Shekher |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Study participants or study members |
| Results and Impact | Research shows that the ways in which parents perceive of and think about education have important connections to how they contribute to children's schooling and learning. Parental involvement and engagement with schools is understood as being critical for building supportive environments that help children learn and thrive. However, relatively little is known about how mothers in global south, rural contexts understand the concept of "learning"; how they think about their own role and ability to shape their children's learning outcomes; and importantly how their own backgrounds and contexts relate to these conceptions. This paper attempts to fill this gap by presenting insights based on 34 interviews and focus group discussions conducted with mothers in four purposively sampled villages in Sitapur district, India. Most sampled mothers in this study are between 25-35 years, uneducated and from the Schedule Caste background (a traditionally disempowered social category). Embedded within a mixed methods evaluation of a program aiming to improve school-community engagement, these interviews produce rich narratives on how these mothers understand education and learning, how their backgrounds shape these perceptions and importantly, the different mechanisms through which they contribute to their children's schooling and learning. Reflecting on personal hardships faced, mothers associate education with improved prospects for their children, including future jobs and marriage. Most interesting, however, are the connections mothers make between the ability to read, write and do arithmetic with greater independence and mobility, for instance, being able to read and fill documents in government offices such as banks, read signboards and travel unescorted, without help or fear. These interviews also shed light on the myriad ways in which children's education is organised within households, ranging from decisions around school choice, study-routines and the use of disciplinary measures. These discussions reveal that mothers tend to dismiss or underestimate their own ability to shape children's learning, perceiving the lack of formal education as a major disadvantage. Such perceptions along with responsibilities of house and farm work and socio-cultural norms often mean that mothers do not directly engage with teachers, unless filling in for male or older members of the family. Even so, mothers in this study discussed their children's learning in a variety of ways, ranging from more rote-based conceptions like recitation of multiplication tables to a more nuanced understanding of children's foundational learning in reading and numeracy. Mothers derive these conceptions from a range of sources, including observation of their children's daily routines, the ease or difficulty with which children can read a story or complete schoolwork. In discussing these themes, we highlight both the ways in which mothers conceive of education and 'learning', as well as the perceived and actual limitations they face in actively engaging with their child's education. By recognizing these issues, policies and programs can help centre the role of mothers and families in children's education, helping to build and strengthen beliefs and practices that can help children achieve better learning. Impact-? |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2021 |
| Description | Video recording with Ms Purnima Ramanujan: fieldwork experiences for survey design and data collection |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Postgraduate students |
| Results and Impact | The collection of data to be used in quantitative analysis requires a deep engagement with the questions: what is been measured? How is this being measured? How is this been used? Quantitative research runs into the same concerns as qualitative analyses in terms of power imbalances, cultural assumptions, superiority of methods. For this reason, all Master students at the Faculty of Education, University of Cambridge, were given training on "critically reading and understanding quantitative methods in educational research". For one of these sessions (there were 4 sessions in total), we recorded an interview with Ms Purnima Ramanujan who reflected on the main challenges of undertaking data collection for quantitative studies in the Global South. In particular, she engaged in issues of cross cultural differences and how to pilot, test and adapt, so that research instruments are as contextually relevant as possible. She focused on the experiences of the ESRC project: accountability from the grassroots in India. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2020 |
| URL | https://www.educ.cam.ac.uk/courses/graduate/masters/researchmethods/ |
| Description | Webinar: "COVID-19: Thinking differently about education research impact" |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | This webinar hosted by the Impact Initiative focused on whether/how we need to think differently about impact for education policy and practice in the context of COVID-19. Dr Suman Bhattacharjea, Co-I on this project, was a panelist at the event. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2020 |
| URL | https://www.theimpactinitiative.net/event/covid-19-thinking-differently-about-education-research-imp... |