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Educating girls: Gender divisions in education

I was recently in a village in Rajasthan where I came across a government school with a total enrolment of 20 students. This village is not too far from a city that has a number of private schools. Most parents prefer to send their children to these private schools as they perceive the quality of education to be better there. These children have to take a bus and travel 30-35 km to get to these schools. Interestingly, almost all of the students remaining in the government school are girls. Upon discussion, I found that the parents did not wish to send their girl child that far, or incur the extra expenditure from private schooling on educating a girl child. So, the number of boys in the government school had been reducing quite dramatically in the past few years but the number of girls has not reduced as much. However, because of this exodus of boys, the total number of students has declined sharply. As the number of students has dwindled, the locals feel that the head master and the teachers have become less motivated towards actually teaching the remaining children. In the process, a number of girls who have no choice but to stay on in the local school continue to lose out on possibly better learning outcomes.

This observation prompted me to explore the existing literature on the gender differences that exist in attainment of education. Kingdon (2005)[1], using National Council of Applied Economic Research (NCAER) data collected at the individual household level, found that private educational expenditure and enrollment is significantly lower for girls as compared to that for boys. Dreze and Sen (1998)[2] found that parents were less inclined to send their girl children to private schools or to schools that are far away (similar to the phenomenon I witnessed). A study conducted by Indian Statistical Institute Delhi (ISID), using 52nd round National Sample Survey (NSS) data, found that the enrollment of girls in schools for the bottom two quartiles of household wealth (measured as the non-food expenditure by the household) was negatively affected by cost of education, while for boys, this was only true for the lowest quartile. This implies that while lower wealth has an adverse impact on enrolment, girls were affected across a larger wealth spectrum as compared to boys. Furthermore, they found that having a female head of a household had a positive impact on the participation of girls in education. Similarly, Dreze and Kingdon (1999)[3] found that parent’s education level, particularly mother’s education level, had a great impact on the girl child education.

To study the latest figures on education, I looked at the 64th NSS round[4], which collected data on participation and expenditure on education in 2007-08. The NSS report provides a lot of insight into gender divisions in education. The report has details on private expenditure on education, divided into a number of items (like tuition fees, private coaching, books uniform, transport etc.). In this post, I will be looking at data for rural areas. The data used here is summarized in Table 1. Overall, expenditure on education is lower for girls across all items; for the total, the average is Rs. 1531 for a girl as compared to Rs. 2032 for a boy. There is also a large difference between male and female child average tuition fees (see table below). This could possibly be because parents are more willing to send their male child to a more expensive school. Similarly, there is a gap in the percentage of boys and girls attending private (aided and unaided) schools, though this difference is not very large.

Another interesting point is that the expenditure on transport is much higher for boys, as compared to that for girls, in rural areas, while this figure is the same for both genders in urban areas (See table below). This could be because in villages, as compared to urban areas, children may travel longer distances to get to their school, particularly if they are not going to the local government school. The parents of girl children may thus be reluctant to send their girl that far or may decide to just send their girl child to the local government school instead, as was the case in the village mentioned above.

Table 1 (Source: NSS 64th Round)

Girls Boys
Total Expenditure(In Rs.) 1531 2032
Average Tuition Fees(in Rs.) 342 556
% attending private schools (aided and unaided) 20.7 24.1
Expenditure on transport- Rural(in Rs.) 125 156
Expenditure on transport- Urban(in Rs.) 513 513

 

The reasons for dropping out are also quite divergent between the sexes. While financial constraint remains the primary reason for both, ‘parents not interested in studies’, ‘to attend to domestic chores’ and ‘other reasons (including marriage etc.)’ are all very high for girls, and quite low for boys[5].

There has been a great focus on female education in India; and creating gender friendly environments, providing separate girls toilets, providing scholarships, free textbooks, etc. have been a major part of the education drive. There have also been state schemes which incentivized sending a girl child to school (a review of some of them can be found here) through conditional cash transfers. These programs have focused on both, the child and the parents. However, if we look at the predominant reasons for dropping out, they seem to imply that the parents feel their child could be doing something more useful than schooling. Thus, the schemes (at least until 2007-08) have not managed to fully reinforce the value of education for both the girl child and the parents. The studies conducted on the available data show that parent education level, especially mother’s education, is a significant factor in female education attainment. The importance of parents has been recognized, to some extent, by the Government through schemes such as KGBV (Kasturba Gandhi Balika Vidyalaya) and NPEGEL (National Programme for Education of Girls for Elementary Level), which incorporate community mobilization into their model. Motivating parents and enhancing the role of the mother in learning are also a part of these programs. However, a holistic scheme directed at sustaining female education may need to target parents more proactively, by moving from simply mobilizing and motivating them towards providing education for them as well.

[1] Kingdon, Geeta Gandhi. ‘Where Has All the Bias Gone? Detecting Gender Bias in the Intrahousehold Allocation of Educational Expenditure’. Economic Development and Cultural Change 53, no. 2 (January2005): 409–451.

[2] Dreze, J. and Amartya Sen., 1995, India: Economic Development and Social Opportunity, Oxford University Press.

[3] Drèze, J. and Geeta Gandhi Kingdon., 1999,  “School Participation in Rural India”.

[4] The report can be found on the MOSPI website- http://mospi.gov.in/

[5] The details on the reasons for dropping out can be found in the NSS 64th round report- Page 85

Lessons from a government school

Education is the doorway to a better, more informed world. To what extent have we succeeded in opening this door for the children of India? According to a study in 2007 (by the Public Affairs Centre in Bangalore), there are as many as 76 % of rural households that send their children to government or government-aided schools in India. This implies that the progress in education would depend to a large extent on the functionality and quality standards of these schools. However, the quality of education in these schools leaves much to be desired as indicated in the HRD report on Education , the ASER report and various individual studies.1 According to the PAISA National Report 2012 only 6% of the designated 55,746 crores spent on education, goes towards improving the quality of education for students.2 A study by Kremer and Muralidharan in 2007 has revealed that only 1 in 4 government school teachers actually teach.3 Here, however, I am going to highlight how a government school has surpassed several of the above problems and is a shining example of the methods that can be used for sustained improvement. I have based this post on an extra-ordinary government school located outside Pune. The school remains open 365 days a year, has students excelling in academics and taking part in extra-curricular activities, and the community has played a key role in its success. The Indian Express talks about it in this article

1. Levels of commitment– “For the past 11 years, the school has stayed open every single day, and at least one of them has been present.” This level of commitment may be unrealistic but we can expect that if their job is to be in school 5 days a week then they should be there. According to the same study by Kremer and Muralidharan, absenteeism rate of government school teachers in India, at 25%, is amongst the highest in the world. Teacher’s absenteeism could have a significant impact on children’s presence and retention in schools

2. Schools and teachers should encourage learning– “Soon, parents from other villages started sending their children to the school.” A survey conducted by the NSSO in 2000 revealed that among factors leading to lack of enrolment of children, 50% of children and parents combined, responded with lack of interest towards going to/sending their children to school. A study conducted by Tilak in 2000 says that this lack of interest can be attributed to various factors including poverty and lack of good schooling facilities.4 It is upto the schools to do their bit: firstly by having enough number of qualified teachers and and good infrastructure, secondly by encouraging their students in all spheres so more new students enrol and have an all-round development.

3. Making sure the slow learners are not left behind– “And until the entire class has learnt a concept, we do not proceed further.” Some schools claim to be performing well, based on the fact that the 10th state board topper was from their school. What about the others?  The teaching should be comprehensive to a majority of the class and extra attention should be paid to slow learners. The government should inculcate an attitude in schools and SMC’s, wherein the school bases their performance overall and not on the basis of a few students. In a class of 50, the question becomes, is it more valuable to the school to have 5 students who are academic toppers or 50 students who are all-rounders, i.e good in academics and extra-curricular activities.

4.Make the child an integral part of the school’s daily functioning-“The children who come in early in the morning clean the rooms and water the plants before attending their classes.” The children need to be made a part of the larger scheme of things in their school. To encourage them to come to school, there must be a change from merely being taught in classrooms and given homework to do at home. Change the attitude from just school to “my school”. They should be encouraged to care for plants and should be sensitised towards the environment. Northeast Affected Area Development Society (NEADS) is also carrying out a project on “Kitchen Gardening” sponsored by UNICEF to support the Mid-day meal programme functioning in the schools with a view to enrich the nutritional value of the meals, making the schools self-reliant, generate interest among the children to ensure active participation in developing and maintaining kitchen gardens and ensure effective use of the activities as experimental learning for the children.5

5.Schools should not just be about academic performance- “the children come to school during holidays too for extra-curricular activities like singing, dancing, theatre and elocution.” Every student has different levels of intelligence in different spheres. Howard Gardner talks about Multiple Intelligence.6 In India, statistics regarding performance of children in schools focus only on academic performance, essentially testing linguistic intelligence and logical mathematical intelligence: be it the PISA, HRD, DISE or the ASER report. There are others such as musical intelligence etc. A system needs to be created where all the children are able to be marked on various aspects beyond academic performance so that it gives an all-round indication of the child’s intelligence as opposed to one aspect of him/her.

6.Innovative methods, cultural activities will lead to academic performance also– “The school today, has a television with cable connection, an LCD monitor and computers. Whether it is simple multiplication, division or even saying the numbers backwards, the children are adept at it.” Mere rote-learning, as is emphasised in government schools in India is clearly not showing any improvement as NGO Pratham’s, Annual Status of Education Report (ASER) data reveals. At the national level, the percentage of children in Class 3-5 in government schools who are Class 2 text readers has hardly changed in the last three years: 35% in 2009, 37% in 2010, and 36% in 2011. ASER data also shows that the reading levels of children nearly 47% Class 5 students cannot read Class 2 texts, while over 63% of Class 3 students cannot subtract.7 When you have innovative learning methods such as using science-kits, stories, drama’s, radio’s, dividing children into groups and giving presentations, etc. children are less likely to feel bored and will learn enthusiastically. However, it will take some years before this can be tested empirically since they are a recent phenomenon.8

7.Involve the community– “They had to start from scratch when they shifted here from another government school in 2001. This was a dilapidated place with rats, no blackboards, no benches and no toilets The entire place had to be done up for which they got some money from the village committee.” Various NGO’s working on the ground are trying to get communities to be more actively involved. This comes as a refreshing change where the community contributed towards education of their own accord, with no external motivation or pressure. Laina Emmanuel here also talks about the importance of empowering communities because if they are involved, the standards of service delivery improve as accountability increases. Rajasthan is appointing Shiksha Karmi’s and has the Lok Jumbish project to enhance community participation in education.9

8. Nutrition not food, Empowering not teaching is the key– “Six-year-old Sachin, who was earlier diagnosed as malnourished, is now a healthy child, thanks to the meals at school. Students of their first batch are now in college and often come back to meet them. They also offer their services to help the school develop further.”As Avani Kapur has mentioned in her post here malnutrition is rampant in our country with over 37% children in India among Integrated Child Development Scheme (ICDS) beneficiaries having some form of it. Malnutrition is not necessarily due to lack of quantity but lack of nutrients. All schemes and schools must focus on nutrition and not just food in their meals. Schools should aim not just to take classes, but ensure they change the life of a child for the better and empower them. The same students, as can be seen here, will make a difference in other’s lives.

9. Spread the word and have a state govt. training format-“Teachers from more than 7,000 schools in the state have visited the school to witness this unique experiment.” The government should spread the word through pamphlets, presentations in every government school. This could be made a model government school at a national level. Each state government could facilitate under-performing schools every year from their state to visit this school. The Human Resource Development (HRD) Ministry, has approved the scheme of “setting up of 6000 Model Schools at block level as benchmark of excellence.”10Also, states could aim to add a substantial number of model-schools in their own state every year. We find bad news spreads fast enough. Why not the good?

10.Planning is important but will-power is also needed-“A school with no bell, no designated periods, no specific curriculum and open all 365 days. We do not have any planned periods. We also decide the subjects ourselves.” Some government programmes fail to deliver outcomes because of lack of proper planning, some fail because of lack of knowledge of ground realities and some fail because of lack of will to implement programmes. Here, above all, the will to make a difference in the lives of children has clearly been the driving force behind this school.

Simply because a school is a government school, it need not be viewed by the people through a prism of under-performance. They can and should perform well.

References:

1.Regarding poor quality of government schools:

a.  http://images2.asercentre.org/Resources/Articles/art09-who-is-learning.pdf

b. http://cmdr.ac.in/editor_v51/assets/Mono-2.pdf

c. http://www.iitk.ac.in/3inetwork/html/reports/IIR2007/12-Rural%20Education.pdf

d. http://www.isid.ac.in/~pu/conference/dec_10_conf/Papers/RobertFrench.pdf

e.http://mhrd.gov.in/sites/upload_files/mhrd/files/StateEducationSecretariesConferenceSELJan12.pdf

2. http://www.accountabilityindia.in/article/state-report-cards/2475-paisa-report-2011

3.http://www.economics.harvard.edu/faculty/kremer/files/Public%20and%20private%20schools%20in%20rural%20india%20%28Final%20Pre-Publication%29.pdf

4.http://cmdr.ac.in/editor_v51/assets/Mono-2.pdf

5.http://www.educationforallinindia.com/best-practices-mid-day-meal-by-vprsraju.pdf

6. http://www.infed.org/thinkers/gardner.htm

7. http://pratham.org/images/Aser-2011-report.pdf

8.http://www.indiatogether.org/2007/jan/edu-newteach.htm

9.http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/4410774?uid=3738256&uid=2&uid=4&sid=21101253863847

10. http://rmsaap.nic.in/G.O%27s/254.pdf

The invisible fourth pillar

It is a good time as any to talk about free press in India. For the last ten days, protests have erupted around the world over an anti-Islam film.  The Jammu and Kashmir government responded by blocking Youtube and Facebook last Friday to prevent violence. In the last six months, political cartoons have sent two people to jail. Cartoonist Aseem Trivedi’s representation of a national symbol earned him an arrest warrant for sedition. Jadavpur University’s professor Ambikesh Mahapatra found himself behind bars earlier this April for sharing a cartoon about Mamata Bannerjee via email.

As I read these reports online and opinions about increasing intolerance with regard to free speech, I couldn’t help but feel relieved that at least I was reading them. Print, television, the internet, still has space to agree, dissent, express outrage and if we read across mediums and competing voices, it isn’t hard to make an informed opinion. But what if these voices were quelled and we were never told about seditious cartoonists and insensitive films?  Or all we heard was a homogenous voice that subscribed to one opinion and only had one story to tell?

At present, this seems improbable. We pride ourselves on the fourth pillar of democracy. A transparent media that keeps its journalists on their toes, citizens informed and elected representatives attentive. However, an increasing threat to a free media comes not from the government but perhaps from within the ranks itself. Rising concentration of media voices could make self-censorship and gate-keeping plausible and convert a transparent press into an invisible one.

Most developed and developing countries such as USA, UK, Australia, Canada and South Africa have regulations to prevent media cartels from forming, through Cross Media Ownership Laws. Cross media ownership is characterised as an organisation or individual owning more than one branch or segment of the media, such as an organisation owning a print and/or television and/or radio broadcasting company.

India has maintained a prolonged silence on this issue. Take for example what happened in June this year (or rather, what didn’t happen until June this year). A report by the Administrative Staff College of India (ASCI) titled ‘A study on Cross Media Ownership in India’, showed up on the Information and Broadcast Ministry’s website for review by media organisations, NGOs, Civil Society Organisations and individuals, three years after it was prepared – in 2009. The report recorded an increasing concentration of media ownership and few organisations holding a large segment of the viewership/readership pie. It called on the need for cross-media regulations and a regulatory body in India.

In contrast, in the same year, the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) came up with a set of recommendations on cross-media ownership that concluded “that no restriction should be imposed on cross control/ownership across telecom and media sectors, at this point of time. The issue could be reviewed after two years.” It also said, “that the current restrictions on number of licenses held by a single entity… are adequate for the time being.”

Do we really need a regulatory body in India? Can’t market competition ensure plurality of voices? Media organisations owned by corporations do not necessarily make them corporate mouthpieces. However, according to Vanita Kohli-Khandekar, in this Business Standard article, large corporations are not investing in the media market because it is profitable. She proposes two reasons for their interest, because they could wield influence and they want to learn the media business.

Under this light, let’s examine one of the biggest media acquisitions in India. In January, Reliance Industries Limited (RIL) bought 11 crore Network18 Media and Investments share. This helped Network 18 write off its debt and acquire the Eeanadu Group’s regional channels. According to The Mint’s report In January, these ETV channels acquired by Network 18 belonged to RIL, that had invested Rs 2,600 crore in the Eenadu Group.

What has RIL gained out of this acquisition?

In addition to their previously owned stake in Eeanadu that includes:

  • 100% economic interest in five regional news channels—ETV Uttar Pradesh, ETV Madhya Pradesh, ETV Rajasthan, ETV Bihar and ETV Urdu
  • 100% economic interest in entertainments channels ETV Marathi, ETV Kannada, ETV Bangla, ETV Gujarati and ETV Oriya
  • 49% economic interest in ETV Telugu and ETV Telugu News

Reliance now has a say in Network18 and the Network’s subsidiary TV18 that includes:

  • Television: CNBC-TV18, CNBC Awaaz, CNBC-TV18 Prime HD, CNN-IBN, IBN7 and IBN-Lokmat (News)  and Colors, MTV, Comedy Central, VH1 and Nick – and Viacom18 Motion Pictures (Entertainment)
  • Internet: moneycontrol.com, ibnlive.com, in.com and firstpost.com
  • Print: Forbes India

That’s not all. According to Paranjoy Guha Thakurta, in The Hoot

“(But) what is arguably the most significant aspect of this strategic association that has been structured in a complicated manner is disarmingly simple: RIL, which is currently setting up an all-India broadband telecommunications network, will get preferential access to the content as well as the distribution assets of the two media groups.”

The RIL-Network18 agreement is not the only corporate-media deal in India this year – Sony, Essel Group, Aditya Birla Group and Sahara Group have also ventured into the market.  Read more on India’s consolidating media market here.

Keeping in mind the dynamic, consolidating market, the ASCI report has made two suggestions (as mentioned before):

The first is to extend TRAI’s current jurisdiction from telecommunications broadcasting and cable television to print media, which would bring the gamut of media sectors under one regulator. Currently, TRAI cannot regulate the print media, which comes under the Press Council of India. Alternatively, the report suggests setting up a Broadcasting Regulatory Authority that would set limits for cross-regulation.

For either of these recommendations to be considered, political will and support from the media will be imperative to expedite rules. A regulatory body will have to balance between being zealously stringent (as that would take the bite out of the press) and politically or economically dependent on the media (as that would hinder setting down transparent, competitive laws). Regulation that clamps down on consolidation but does not protect media plurality would only result in the opposite of the intended consequence — fewer avenues for transparent reporting.

Free Cell Phones is not a bad idea!!

Days before Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s Independence Day speech, there was a strong rumour that he would announce a scheme to provide free mobile phones and talk-time worth Rs. 200 for households below the poverty line. Though the announcement never came, the media reports focused on the political motives behind the scheme and the fiscal burden it’d impose on the already resource-strapped Treasury. Interestingly, not much was said about possible gains from making access to cell phones universal. This blog-post highlights some of these potential benefits.

A cell phone makes it much easier and cheaper to access information, and this can lead to huge economic gains at an individual and aggregate level, as shown by Jensen (2007) and Aker (2010), in the context of the fishing industry in Kerala and grain markets in Niger[1]. Jensen (2007) has looked at the introduction of mobile phones in Kerala between 1997 and 2001 and its effect on the fishing industry. Before the era of mobile phones, fishermen sold their catch almost exclusively in their village market because they rarely knew prices in other nearby markets. This, in many instances, led to either excess demand or excess supply, and a great deal of price variation across the markets. But once mobile phones were introduced, fishermen, wholesale dealers and retail dealers started coordinating even when fishermen were at sea. This resulted in a dramatic fall in price variation and instances of excess demand or excess supply vanished. The fishermen’s profits went up and prices paid by consumers declined, too. Aker (2010) provides a similar example in the context of grain markets in Niger, where price variation across different markets dropped substantially once mobile phones were introduced. The drop in price variation was even larger for markets that were more remote and not connected with paved roads.

In fact, according to the newspaper reports, the Nigerian Agriculture and Rural Development Ministry is planning to distribute 10 million mobile phones to small farm holders by next year.

The policy of providing free mobile phones is not unique to developing countries. The ‘Life Line Assistance Program’ in the United States provides a free basic cell phone with free talk time of 250 minutes per month for a low income household. The idea is that vulnerable sections (job seekers, senior citizens) would be at a disadvantage without a cell phone due to being disconnected from the rest of the world.

Cell phones also play an important role in making money transfers more cost-effective and hassle-free. Everybody, I guess, knows about M-PESA by now. It’s a mobile phone-based payment and money transfer service, launched by Kenyan wireless service provider Safaricom in April 2007. The service provides users an M-PESA account accessible through their cell phones. This account can be used to deposit money into this account, to send balances using SMS to other users, and redeem deposits. Given the safety, low transaction costs of making transfers even for small amounts, M-PESA has become quite popular with Kenyans. Currently, about 38% of the adult population has access to M-PESA[2]. Buoyed by the success of M-PESA, a number of countries are experimenting with strategies to utilize mobile phones to achieve financial inclusion.

People are coming up with various innovative ways to use cell phones. One such example is ‘Ushahidi’, a software platform to collate and display crowd-sourced information. This platform was created in the aftermath of the 2007 Presidential Elections in Kenya and the associated wide-spread violence. Eye-witnesses can report incidents of violence by email and text messages, which are then placed on Google maps on the web site. These ‘crowd-sourcing’ techniques have become quite popular since then. In the Indian context, www.powercuts.in has been collecting information about the power cuts, and putting it up in an accessible format. Such crowd-sourcing techniques have immense potential to monitor the implementation of various government schemes. I have discussed one such possibility in the context of ‘Cooked Mid Day Meal’ scheme in my previous blog.

The text messaging feature of cell phones is also attracting the attention of researchers and policy-makers. The associated low cost, quick delivery and ability to reach many people simultaneously have made it possible to utilise them in different contexts. In Chhattisgarh, text messages are sent to the beneficiaries of the public distribution system (PDS) or interested citizens, informing them about the departure of trucks carrying food-grain from the Food Corporation of India (FCI) godowns to the local grain shop. Using insights from behavioral economics, researchers are using text messages to increase saving among poor people, improve loan repayments, inform and educate people about various aspects of health care, and so on[3].

In this context, making cell phones available to the entire population might be quite useful. Just thinking of the top of my head, once everybody, especially poorer households, has mobile phones, the government can think of implementing something like this: collecting the cell phone numbers of all the pregnant women through ASHA and sending them text messages/ pre-recorded voice messages reminding them about getting regular check-up done; informing them about the location of the nearest health centres; giving them information about anganwadis where they can receive nutritious grain/ food; giving them information about the Janani Suraksha Yojna; informing them about immunization for children once they give birth and so on. Further, the government can have one dedicated toll-free number for all the schemes related to pregnant women and children in the age-group of 0-3 years or 0-6 years. Anybody can call that number and get the required information. But then why just limit such a service to maternal and child health? Reminders can be sent to people at the beginning of the month to deposit money in their saving account; to ask their kids about what is happening in school every day and so on. These small ‘nudges’ might go a long way in helping people to make useful decisions for themselves[4].

[1] Jensen, Robert (2007). “The Digital Provide: Information (Technology), Market Performance and Welfare in the South Indian Fisheries Sector”, Quarterly Journal of Economics, 122 (3), p. 879-924;

Aker, Jenny (2010). “Information from Markets Near and Far: Mobile Phones and Agricultural Markets in Niger”, American Economic Journal: Applied Economics 2 (July 2010): 46-59

[2] Jack, William and Suri, Tavneet. “The Economics of M-PESA”, August 2010 version

[3] http://wbi.worldbank.org/wbi/content/behavioral-change-using-technology

[4] http://www.ghdonline.org/malaria/discussion/the-effect-of-mobile-phone-text-message-reminders-/;

http://redcrosschat.org/2010/10/25/text-messages-to-fight-cholera/;

http://irevolution.net/2012/07/26/impact-of-sms-on-behavior/

Malnutrition: A response to the Gujarat Chief Minister Based on the Data

Malnutrition in Gujarat has been in the news owing to the Chief Ministers’ comments in a recent newspaper interview. (Full transcript of the particular question is available here). The comments reaffirm widespread public perceptions about malnutrition – that it is primarily a consequence of lack of access to adequate food. Moreover, the comments also suggest that in more developed states like Gujarat, malnutrition is a middle class phenomenon rather than a serious consequence of poverty. Does the data on malnutrition support these assumptions? This blog analyses the data to share some facts and figures about malnutrition in Gujarat.

A lot has already been written about the issue of malnutrition in Gujarat and without getting into the details, I would just like to present some facts.

First, I think it’s important to start with the definition of malnutrition. Malnutrition is the condition that occurs when one’s body does not get enough nutrients. It is not necessarily correlated with lack of quantity of food – as is often assumed.

While there are many technical definitions of malnutrition, most measures incorporate three main components. These are:

  • Height-for age, which is referred to as stunting and reflects a failure to receive adequate nutrition over long periods of time and is also affected by recurrent and chronic illness.
  • Weight-for-height (wasting), which measures body mass in relation to body length and describes current nutritional status.
  • Weight-for-age or a measure of how underweight you are. This represents the long-term effects of malnutrition in a population and does not vary according to recent dietary intake.

Second, it is important to note that malnutrition is not limited to adult malnutrition. However, as official data suggests, it is children under 5 years of age who suffer the most.

So what is the truth about malnutrition in Gujarat? Let’s take a look at some of the numbers (See Table below).

NFHS III ICDS (as on 31.12.2009) ICDS (as on 31.3.2012)
% of children age 6-59 months, 2005-06
Height for age (stunted) Weight for age
(Underweight)		 Any Anaemia Severe Anaemic Any Malnutrition (severe, mild, moderate)
Bihar 55.6 55.9 78 1.6 NA 82.12
Madhya Pradesh 50 60 74.1 3.4 43.86 23.19
Rajasthan 43.7 39.9 69.7 6.7 47.31 39.18
Gujarat 51.7 44.6 69.7 3.6 56.87 34.04
Punjab 36.7 24.9 66.4 6.6 34.85 27.01
Haryana 45.7 39.6 72.3 4.3 43.91 43.54
Maharashtra 46.3 37 63.4 1.8 37.89 18.85
India 48 42.5 64.2 2.6 45.84 37.32

Source: National Family Health Survey-III, available online at: http://www.rchiips.org/NFHS/report.shtml and Integrated Child Development Services, available online at: http://wcd.nic.in/icdsdatatables.htm

As can be seen from the table above, in 2005-06, according to the third round of Indian National Family Health Survey (NFHS III), in Gujarat, 52% of children under five years of age were stunted,  45% were underweight and over 70% were anaemic. It is often argued that there is a correlation between malnutrition and vegetarianism. However, this does not hold statistically. As is evident, despite Haryana being a state which is even more predominantly vegetarian than Gujarat (2% of protein intake in rural Gujarat is from eggs, meat etc while only 1% from Haryana[1]), it rates better in most nutrition figures except anaemia. Thus, vegetarianism alone cannot be an explanation.

Four years later, in 2009-10, according to the Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS) own website, Gujarat continued to fare badly on malnutrition amongst ICDS beneficiaries with 57% of ICDS beneficiaries malnourished, much higher than the national average of 45% and higher than most poorer states such as Chhattisgarh (53%), Jharkhand (44%), Rajasthan (47%) and Madhya Pradesh (44%). While the situation, improved in 2011-12(from 57% to 34%), it still remains higher than many other states. Moreover, it is important to remember that this number does not take into account children who are not ICDS beneficiaries and thus the situation could in fact be far worse.

Even with regards to adult women malnutrition as per the NFHS-III, 55 % of Gujarati women were anaemic and 2.6% were severely anaemic, worse than all states except Assam and Andhra Pradesh.

I do not deny that like many states the average nutritional intake in Gujarat has been declining in recent years. In fact, in their article on nutrition, Jean Dreze and Angus Deaton refer to a number of puzzling trends which indicate that per capita food consumption in India has been falling as income levels rise. But what is worrying about Gujarat’s data is the fact that in 2009-10, over 60 percent of households in rural areas and over 55 percent in urban areas were below the recommended norm of 2,700 Kcal per day. (66th round of the National Sample Survey Organisation Report (NSSO), Report No. 540, “Nutritional intake in India”)

Unsurprisingly, these nutritional levels seem to be strongly correlated with poverty. The 66th round of NSSO maps the per capita per day intake of calories measured in Kcal with the Monthly Per Capita Expenditure (MPCE) and found that in 2009-10, the average daily intake in Gujarat was significantly low for the poorest 10% of households at 1,484 kcal in urban areas and 1,430 kcal in rural areas. For the richest 10% on the other hand, it was nearly double those figures for both urban and rural.

To conclude, the malnutrition data from Gujarat points to the fact that malnutrition is not a middle class phenomenon as has been assumed but rather a serious problem that needs to be actively addressed through targeted government efforts

[1] 66th round of the National Sample Survey Organisation Report (NSSO), Report No. 540, “Nutritional intake in India”

Money, Money, Money: Monitoring and Evaluation of SSA Expenditures

In my previous blog, I had focused on a framework aimed at improving the governance of elementary education in India. One key aspect of this framework is budget and resource management, which serves as an important route to strengthening social accountability: the more efficient and transparent public education expenditure, the better the delivery of education services to beneficiaries. As readers of this blog are already aware, the PAISA survey is a method of tracking public expenditure and resources in the education sector, down through the various levels of bureaucracy, aiming to pin-point exactly where there are leakages and hurdles. In this blog, I highlight some of the ways in which I’ve seen states and districts monitor their own expenditures within the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA) and suggest complementary methods of monitoring and evaluation to enhance financial management within the programme.

To cite an example from Bihar, conversations with the Management Information System (MIS) Officer at the Bihar Education Project Council revealed that each month, the districts are ranked according to their monthly SSA expenditure. Ranking is roughly based on the proportion of the budget spent each month on various line-items, as outlined in the Annual Work Plan and Budget (AWP&B). What is intriguing about this practice is that regular written feedback is provided to the district administrations, which not only contains a list of the top-ranking districts in the state, but also highlights (for each district) the line-items for which fund utilisation is falling below par and needs to be augmented. Moreover, additional funds are not transferred until a minimum percentage of the previous instalment has been spent; for instance, at least 70% of the instalment for the civil works line-item.

The above practice then appears to serve two purposes: 1. it becomes a way to establish benchmarks for the districts, in a way allowing them to “compete” with each other; 2. it communicates to the district administrations that the state officials are regularly monitoring their activities and expenditures, creating an incentive to perform well. However, the state-level administration “guiding” the districts in such a way runs the risk of undermining the ability of the districts to take important spending decisions on their own, with management processes that are essentially executed in a top-down fashion. While this monitoring process presents itself as a simple and effective way to gauge district spending, it remains incomplete since:

  • It does not measure the level of real decision-making powers at district and sub-district levels;
  • It does not assess in detail the impediments to the actual delivery of educational services in each district; and finally,
  • Data is not readily accessible or available for public scrutiny, making it harder for citizens to monitor financial (or even other) progress of the programme.

In contrast, such data is more readily available in the case of Madhya Pradesh (MP), for instance, where a comparatively more transparent and advanced financial management information system (FMIS) is in place. MP does not rank districts like Bihar and nor does its monitoring process include the assessment of decision-making powers or impediments to service delivery. However, it does keep track of how much each district is spending every month (and quarter) as a proportion of allocated and released funds. Monthly expenditure reports (MER) of all districts are compiled and uploaded online regularly on the MP Education Portal, as are all related Government Orders and other official documents. MP’s commitment to increasing transparency and information flow on a real-time basis is thus commendable and other states would do well to replicate a similar FMIS.

Yet, expenditure monitoring practices in both states also demonstrate that the current focus is only on inputs and outputs within the sector, i.e., how much was allocated and how much spent on providing elementary education. At present, there does not appear to be an assessment of the quality of services provided, nor of the extent to which they actually meet the needs of the beneficiaries. The needs of the hour, apart from greater transparency of data, are tighter – and participatory – monitoring and evaluation of expenditures and truly devolved powers of decision-making, so that more efficient spending and greater accountability can be enforced.

Current financial monitoring practices and mechanisms can be strengthened in several ways:

  1. Institutional monitoring can be enhanced as part of larger institutional reforms, which ensure that clear-cut functions are outlined at each level of the administration, with appropriate funds and resources for each functionary – who is given adequate monetary and non-monetary incentives to perform well.
  2. A results-oriented system can be created with evaluations that focus less on inputs and processes, and more on targets, setting benchmarks for improved financial performance.
  3. Audits, both internal and external, can be enforced more stringently.
  4. Tracing fund flows through efforts such as PAISA can be complemented with the implementation of other citizen-centred monitoring and evaluation strategies, such as through citizen report cards (CRC) and social audits. On the one hand, CRC’s are a means for the public to rate the quality of services delivered and their findings can be easily linked with the institutional management and incentive systems, as was done in Bangalore at the turn of the century. On the other, social audits provide citizens the opportunity to together evaluate the performance of public officials and elected representatives, and hold them accountable for it. While social audits have been held most widely in Andhra Pradesh (AP) and Rajasthan under the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA), they are now also to be implemented for a number of other Centrally Sponsored Schemes, including SSA[1]. However, reports from various parts of the country reveal that, by and large, there is still great resistance to this form of monitoring of SSA, with government agencies reluctant to share information.

Thus, there is a whole range of tools and means available for improving financial and resource management in public education and enhancing governance in education at large. However, the ball is in each state government’s court to exercise political will to institutionalise these tools and strengthen accountability in the sector.

[1] For analyses of AP’s experience of conducting social audits to assess the implementation of NREGA and the Public Distribution System, see here and here.

Financial Inclusion in India

The need for creating equitable access to basic financial services has been widely acknowledged by several studies in recent years. A lot of the literature on the banking sector points to a close relation between the development of financial architecture and economic growth, income equality and reduction in poverty. This post, the first of a two-part blog-post on financial inclusion, talks briefly about the idea of financial inclusion, scopes the extent of financial exclusion in India and also delineates some of the first efforts of the Government of India (GOI) with regard to addressing this issue.

So what is financial inclusion? The term first featured in official GOI literature in 2005 when the RBI’s Mid Term Monetary Review paper, defined it as ‘The process of ensuring access to appropriate financial products and services needed by all sections of society in general and vulnerable groups such as weaker sections and low income groups in particular at an affordable cost, in a fair and transparent manner by mainstream institutional players.’[1]

Research contends that a financially inclusive system is highly desirable for 3 reasons.[2]First, it facilitates the efficient allocation of productive resources. Second, access to appropriate financial services can significantly improve individuals with their day-to-day management of finances thereby enabling them to stabilise their income levels. And third, an all-inclusive financial system can help reduce the growth of informal sources of credit (such as moneylenders) which often tend to be exploitative.

Khempson and Whyley[3] in their paper in 1999, identified five major forms of financial exclusion as follows:

  1. Access exclusion, where segments of population remain excluded from the financial system either due to remoteness or due to the process of risk management of the financial system.
  2. Condition exclusion, when exclusion occur due to conditions that are inappropriate for some people.
  3. Price exclusion, when the exclusion happens due to unaffordable prices of financial products.
  4.  Marketing exclusion, when exclusion occurs due to targeted marketing and sales of financial products.
  5.  Self-exclusion, that takes place when certain groups of people exclude themselves from the formal financial system owing to fear of refusal or due to psychological barriers.

Thus, whilst attempting to understand financial inclusion in the Indian context, one would do well to factor in each of these types of exclusion.

In India, the first major effort towards financial inclusion dates way back to 1969, when through an official directive, the GOI nationalized 16 banks[4], with a view to provide access to banking services to its vast rural populace. The Co-operative Bank movement, the setting up of Regional Rural Banks, Self Help Groups, and even the Lead Bank Scheme were all early initiatives geared towards enlisting the participation of excluded sections of the populations into the formal rung of financial services. And yet, even several decades since, the extent of financial exclusion in the country is staggering.

With only 33,945 bank branches in as many as 6 lakh habitations, India has a low bank branch to population ratio. World Bank data reports that with only 10.9 branches per 100,000 persons, India fares higher than other developing nations such as Bangladesh (6.9 per 100,000 persons), Iraq (4.2 per 100,000) and Pakistan (8.8 per 100,000) it fares considerably lower than countries such as Denmark (where the number stands at 41.1 branches per 100,000), Honk Kong (23.6 branches per 10,000) Japan (34.0 branches per 100,000) and even South Korea (18.6 branches per 100,000)[5]. RBI data[6] reveals that only 55 percent of the Indian population has deposit accounts (with nothing being said with regard to what extent all of these are actually operational), and only under 9 percent of the population own credit accounts. Less than 20% of individuals own any kind of life insurance and less than 9% own any other type of insurance.

It is therefore clear that despite the introduction of multiple interventions spanning several decades, efforts towards achieving financial inclusion in India have seen only limited success, with sizeable numbers of the country’s population still being left out of formal financial institutions. In my next post I shall talk about some of the more recent initiatives by GOI that have a more concerted focus on creating financial inclusion, the amount of money being spent on them, the reasons and extent for their successes and failure, and most importantly, some policy interventions that could be implemented to fast-track this process.

[1] Speech on Financial Inclusion by Dr. K.C. Chakrabarty, Deputy Governor, Reserve Bank of India, September 2011, http://rbidocs.rbi.org.in/rdocs/Speeches/PDFs/FIC060911DG.pdf

[2]  Discussion paper on the “Index of Financial Inclusion”, M Sarma, 2010, http://202.41.10.25/Academics/Schools/SchoolOfInternationalStudies/CITD/DiscussionPapers/DP05_2010.pdf

[3] Kept Out or Opted Out, understanding and combating financial exclusion, Kempson and Whyley, 1999, http://www.pfrc.bris.ac.uk/Reports/Kept_out_opted_out.pdf

[4] The Reserve Bank of India, 1967-1981, chapter 1, “The Defining Event”

http://rbidocs.rbi.org.in/rdocs/content/PDFs/90069.pdf

[5] World Bank Data, Commercial Bank Branches per 100,000 adults, http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/FB.CBK.BRCH.P5

[6] The Reserve Bank of India, http://www.rbi.org.in/scripts/PublicationsView.aspx?id=13517

Empowering communities through data and supporting them with technology

The PAISA project since its inception in 2009, has been tracking the flow of funds of social sector schemes as well as studying the decision-making mechanisms involved in their implementation. From the very beginning, we were clear that our research should not be an entity by itself, where we simply collect data for the sake of research. Rather, we were interested in trying to understand how data can be used to enable and empower communities and individuals. Thus, our concerted focus (or rather, comprehension) has not been on the data itself, but rather how to use data and associated technologies in evolving communities.

Through PAISA, AI works with broadly three types of local communities

–          Our field associates working in 9 districts in 7 states across the country. They are being trained to become experts in local governance, and our idea is for them to ultimately provide research-based inputs that will effect in the better functioning of social sector schemes in their district.

–          Larger communities of local governance expert such as elected Panchayat members, SMC members and so on, who we believe are critical to accountable delivery of services.

–          A much larger community of actual recipients of public services such as parents of school-going children and so on (I won’t be talking about them in this blog post).

Community of field associates: Our field associates come from 9 districts in 7 states of the country. Most of these are rural districts except for Hyderabad which is an urban district. To grow into their roles as research-driven local governance experts, our associates need to know how to extract data from these rural ecosystems. This is not an easy task. Open data about the implementation of Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (to cite) and the planning decisions that go into its implementation, are spread across different levels of the government – central, state, district, block and schools. Consolidated data that gives a complete picture across all levels is not available, and it is through a critical process of developing relations with officials, convincing them of the usefulness of having a consolidated picture, and using the RTI that we and the associates are able to collate this data. As Gurstein points out in his editorial in the Journal of Community Informatics, regarding Transparency Chennai’s experiments of developing a list of public toilets in Chennai(who has also incidentally blogged about it on our blog) – “Open Government data(OGD) in developing economies is not a neutral output to be reconfigured, analyzed and displayed (through apps). Rather OGD is an artifact in itself to be analysed, accredited, authenticated and ultimately something to be created as an output of a significant process requiring legal support (as for example through RTI legislation), technical and forensic skill, persistence and ultimately courage.”. It is a point that is brought out by our experiments with Open Government data.

To support this community of field associates, we have put in place two strategies – one is the development of a participatory course, where through intensive, collaborative modules on the creation of content,  their incorporation into practice, reports of what works and what doesn’t, mind-maps based brainstorming and detailed discussions, the associates learn and grow into their roles; the other is the development of a ICT-based sharing platform, (which the associates have appropriated as their own platform) where the associates share daily life happenings and consequently develop a shared vocabulary, something that was not possible earlier while they were in their respective districts.

Larger community of local governance experts: The larger communities of local governance experts we are building are spread across districts beyond those of the PAISA field associates talked above. These include districts in far-flung Kutch and Rajasthan. The community members, some of them Panchayat members, some SMC members and other Panchayat committee members are all technology-enabled (also called TELPEs) in that they can use ICT based platforms to interact with TELPE’s in other regions.

One of the main problems faced by these members lie in their capacity to perform their roles, as the training they get is barely enough. Training is provided in packages of 3 to 4 days and are rarely thorough enough given the vast range of duties they are expected to perform. Rajesh Tandon and Kaustuv Kanti Bandyopadhyay in this paper argue that “training of individuals is (often) seen as the sine-qua-non of capacity building through some pre-determined package of inputs. However, capacity building comprises of a variety of other approaches and processes such as, organizational strengthening, institutional learning, exposure, horizontal sharing and solidarity are some of the other illustrations of practical, hands-on and experiential learning processes to capacity building”. I would argue that this kind of capacity building involves “messy data” such as stories, voice bytes, videos and so on.

It is to encourage this kind of messy data sharing that we have developed the strategic practice of organising regular sharing sessions between various local governance experts (including our PAISA field associates). 2-3 hour long sharing sessions are held where stories, questions, solutions to problems and structured presentations are shared, followed by a detailed question-answer session. TELPE’s from far-flung villages congregate at a local internet-enabled centre from which they skype with other TELPE’s across the country. In addition to video and voice sharing, our TELPE’s use social networking platforms to quiz each other on local governance issues so as to reinforce core concepts.

Though the use of ICT based platforms is common to both the communities we are working with the strategies used by each and the way the technology has been appropriated by each community has been different. A similar story is seen in the case of data – while one community is creating Open Government Data which has not been created before, the other is using messy data to empower themselves to perform their roles better.

Decentralised Education Delivery: Do GPs hold lessons for SMCs, Part 2

In my previous blog post (which can be found here) I made the argument that a community which is directly contributing to the school’s functioning, in some way or the other, would be more likely to hold School Monitoring Committees (henceforth SMCs) accountable. This would lead to better functioning SMCs, and therefore better overall school planning, in terms of utilization of funds, and school performance, in terms of teacher and student attendance and total enrolments. To analyse if such a relationship exists, we would need data on SMCs functioning and community participation. In the PAISA survey conducted in 2011[1], we had collected data on community contribution and how often the SMCs meet (among many other things). Using the frequency of SMC meetings as a proxy for its functioning, I carried out some basic data analysis with the two variables. The correlation analysis between them showed no significant relationship between the two (correlation resulted in a very low negative value). Interestingly, if we cross tabulate the two variables (shown in the table below), we find a larger percentage of SMCs conducting monthly meetings amongst those who did not receive any form of community contribution(69.78%) as compared to those who did receive community contribution (56.86%). The main message that came out from this analysis was that we cannot really draw any conclusions from our current dataset. There does not seem to be a strong relationship between SMC meeting frequency and contributions by the community.

Monthly SMC Meetings No Community Contribution Some form of Community Contribution
Percentage of SMCs meeting monthly 69.78 56.86
Percentage of SMCs not meeting monthly 30.22 43.14
Total 100 100

 

However, there are some problems with using frequency of SMC meeting as a proxy for SMC performance. Firstly, it is based on recall rather than physical data so it may not be too accurate. This data was collected by asking the head master of the school to recall how frequently the SMCs met, rather than by collecting it from a physical source like a register with the SMC meeting dates. Secondly, a meeting does not always imply better functioning; it is possible that only the HM is voicing his/her opinion while the others are unable to exert any influence. It also does not tell us anything about how well the planning process works, or the topics of discussion taken up in these meetings. In fact, an earlier blog post alludes to these set of issues.[2] Furthermore, in its present form, the question on community contribution does not answer questions like who contributed, how many people contributed, how the money was used, whether the people took an interest in the utilization? And so on.

Taking a cue from an earlier post by Anirvan[3], we could construct a holistic index, which measures all the above stated aspects for both cases, as that might be a better indicator. For example, ‘SMC functioning index’ will need to look not only at the frequency with which they meet but also at the participatory nature of the meeting and the level of planning discussed. We will also need to look into the powers SMCs have[4] i.e. whether the plan that is suggested by the SMC is actually implemented, how detailed the plans are, is the implementation followed up by the SMC members or just the HM? etc. Similarly, a ‘Community Contribution and Awareness index’ would compose of the number of contributions, the amount of contribution, the background of people contributing, the forms of contribution, whether the community monitors how the money is spent, and the general awareness level of the community with regard to the school and student performance. This index would only include contributions which are not institutionalized, for example parental participation in SMCs is a part of the SMC mandate, and so it will not constitute a part of Community Contribution. Rather, this aspect will be covered in SMC functioning index; a better functioning SMC is expected to be participative and will include parents.

Such indices would allow us to gain a deeper understanding of how community contributions work. For example, in the table given above, we saw that the percentage of SMCs meeting monthly was slightly higher for those with no community contribution. Could this possibly be because the money contributed is by one powerful household and this household could be directing how funds in the school are used, thereby undermining the SMCs? This would also mean that the community contribution is not participative or widespread. The indices would account for these and other scenarios, and help us understand them better.

Another aspect, which I think might be interesting in the context of this discussion, would be to see how aware and involved the parents of private schooled children in rural areas are. We have seen that the number of children who are taking up low cost private schooling is on the rise[5] particularly in North India. Many parents are choosing to pay some amount for what is perceived to be higher quality private education rather than taking the free education provided by government schools. Therefore, the parents are contributing to the school- do they then demand better outcomes from the education? Does this expenditure lead to more awareness and involvement of the parent in the child’s learning? (Of course, from the private school’s perspective, it would be more inclined to utilize the money better as that is its only source of income, as opposed to government schools that have a steady fund, and any community contribution would be an additional source) There are a few studies which document the rise of private schooling in rural India and analyse whether this leads to better learning outcomes as compared to public schooling, and they have found that this is the case[6]. However, an analysis of whether the parent motivation and involvement is higher for those who send their children to private schools has not been conducted. This aspect has only been alluded to in anecdotal form in some studies[7].

To conclude, these questions and their answers would contribute to a larger discussion about how free, quality education is and whether quality education can really be provided free of charge. If meaningful and widely participative contributions by the community are necessary to improve the quality of education or if better quality education is being demanded of private schools by the parents, then some form of community contribution may be imperative for improving quality of education delivery.

 

[1] http://www.accountabilityindia.in/paisa_states

[2] http://www.accountabilityindia.in/accountabilityblog/2263-school-management-committees-smcs-guardian-institution-elementary-education-

[3] http://www.accountabilityindia.in/accountabilityblog/2530-assessing-status-schools-through-composite-indices

[4] Specific functions for SMCs are laid out in RTE guidelines, these include (i) monitor school activities and its working, (ii) prepare and recommend school development plan, (iii) monitor grant utilization, (iv) monitor teachers’ and students’ attendance, (v) monitor MDM, (vi) ensure 100% enrolment of children in the age group of 6-14 years

[5] http://www.pratham.org/NewsDetails.aspx?newsID=122

[6] http://www.isid.ac.in/~pu/conference/dec_10_conf/Papers/RobertFrench.pdf and http://www.dise.in/Downloads/Use%20of%20Dise%20Data/Geeta%20Gandhi%20Kingdon_1.pdf

[7] http://www.ernape.net/ejournal/index.php/IJPE/article/viewFile/114/74  and http://www.isid.ac.in/~pu/conference/dec_10_conf/Papers/RobertFrench.pdf

Closing the MDM feedback loop: in response to ‘Food for Thought’

I am following up from Ambrish’s blog that suggests involving parents in monitoring the Mid Day Meals (MDM) Scheme in India, via the relatively new Interactive Voice Response System (IVRS) launched in Uttar Pradesh and Bihar.

Having participated in the same survey, I too came across instances where meals had not been served in schools for weeks, sometimes months. Reasons ranged from grains going bad due to inadequate storage containers, lack of cooking vessels as they had been stolen from the school premises, to insufficient receipt of grants required to convert grains to meals. Sporadic monitoring through MDM registers will not be able to record these discrepancies, but if data is recorded every day, amends can be made in time.

There are two sources that can provide us with information about MDM: the school — Head Masters, Teachers and Cooks (current respondents of the IVRS), and the home — parents and students (left out of the present feedback system). I will not assume that all parents ask their children everyday if they have eaten a meal in school, but it would be safe to suppose that a significant number of parents would know if their children had been going hungry for weeks. This makes parents an important source of information, one that needs to be drawn on, as per Ambrish’s suggestion. This post attempts to build on the idea of citizen feedback.

While collecting information for our survey at the school level, principals and teachers often enquired about what would come of the data we were collecting and whether they would hear back from us. An in-person survey like the one we completed at least has a human element, one that allows the respondent to interact with the surveyor and the other way around. However, with ICT feedback programmes such as IVRS, where the respondent keys in a number, it is hard to imagine where the information goes and what will happen to it once you have turned off your phone.

An IVRS for parents may initially work in capturing data at the family level, as the opportunity costs for parents to respond to a phone call are not very high.  However, unless parents feel empowered to change the system, the IVRS will not increase the level of parents’ participation in their child’s education, thus losing the true potential of including parents as respondents.

Enforcing a government mandated monitoring system ensures consistent data recording but does not empower beneficiaries. According to Cornwall (2008)[i], “Being involved in a process is not equivalent to having a voice. Voice needs to be nurtured. People need to feel able to express themselves without fear of reprisals or the expectation of not being listened to or taken seriously… …Translating voice into influence requires more than simply effective ways of capturing what people want to say; it involves efforts ‘from above’ and ‘from below’.”

For IVRS for parents to work, three things must be ensured ‘from above’ to influence the current system:

1)      Action must be taken based on the feedback provided: If data does not result in change, respondents would not be motivated to answer calls. For example, the Punjab Model for Proactive Governance in Pakistan is a system where the state calls and sends SMS to citizens to inquire about the quality of public service delivered to them and if they encountered any form of corruption. If an official or office is repeatedly reported as corrupt, they can be suspended or dismissed from service. Compared to the Philippine system (described below), this initiative, as the name suggests, proactively checks corruption rather than waiting for the citizen to call in.

2)      Respondents must be kept in the ‘feedback loop’: The system should respond to the participant and share information back with them. For example, the Philippines Civil Service Commission has initiated the Text CSC, an SMS initiative introduced in 2004 to improve the delivery of government services. If the respondent has any grievance against a government service provider, they can SMS their complaint to the Civil Service Commission. Once action is taken the respondent receives a customised answer to their query informing them of the outcome. Similarly, if parents from a particular school consistently record that their child has not received food, officials should be deputed to monitor these schools to verify the information. Data should then be recorded at a central system, which reroutes this information to the participants of the IVRS, informing them of the action taken and the outcome of the action.

3)      Anonymity of respondents must be maintained: Parents would only participate if they are assured that the IVRS system is anonymous and their children will not face the repercussion of sending in feedback to officials. Any reprisal or breach of trust will be enough to dissuade parents from participating in this monitoring process. Data gathered must be treated sensitively, as negative feedback from parents may make school authorities feel cornered and/or antagonistic towards parents. To ensure this, phone numbers should be selected randomly, and, controls should be put into place at school, block, district and state level for accessing data depending on its sensitivity. Further, respondents should be made aware beforehand of how the data will be used.

To ensure that feedback mechanisms for public service delivery work ‘from above’, gathering the accurate data is only the first step. Addressing concerns is the next. However, perhaps most important is the need to create an environment ‘from below’ where beneficiaries not only have knowledge but also the ability to use this mechanism to get what they are entitled to.

[i]  Cornwall, A. 2008. “Unpacking ‘Participation’: Models, Meanings and Practices.” Community Development Journal 43 (3) (June 5): 269–283. doi:10.1093/cdj/bsn010.