Community Engagement for Education Impact Evaluation 2012-2013: Baseline Survey (Pakistan)

Abstract

The main objective of the interventions supported by this impact evaluation is to strengthen linkages between communities and school to improve education outcomes. Rigorous evidence generated from the research will provide valuable information to Pakistani policy makers, donors and development practitioners on the ways in which school based management reforms can be strengthened in low-governance environments like Sindh, Pakistan. The findings of this research are valuable for the ongoing dialogue with the GoSindh on school based management, one of the critical reform area supported under the Second Sindh Education Sector Program (SEP-II).

The impact evaluation is a component of the World Bank's ongoing technical and advisory support to the Government of Sindh for improving the quality and performance of government primary schools as part of its medium-term, multi-pronged Sindh Education Sector Reform Program (SERP-II). An important subprogram under SERP and SERP-II has been the revitalization of school management committees (SMCs) in government schools, with the provision of annual school improvements grants and basic guidelines on SMCs rights, roles and responsibilities across Sindh province. An area of concern in these early efforts has been poor or dissipating community interest and engagement. The interventions piloted in select districts of rural Sindh were designed by the World Bank in partnership with the Reform Support Unit, which is the implementation arm of the Education and Literacy Department of GoSindh. The aim of these interventions was to explore concrete ways to elicit meaningful and sustained local community engagement in improving education outcomes.

Both the baseline survey and the interventions were implemented in three pilot districts in 2012 and 2013. The core intervention being evaluated is community engagement to revitalize SMCs under two distinct mechanisms:
1) a community-level meeting to engage the community in a dialogue for school improvement via SMCs;
2) a virtual network of community members to engage in a similar dialogue supported through text messages on mobile phones.

The first intervention arm makes use of an existing social platform, enabling community members to participate in traditional meetings to acquire information and engage the community in dialogue and discussion on school-related issues. The second arm has created an innovative virtual platform through which registered community members receive school-related information, anonymously send text messages about these issues and receive a summary of key observations or issues twice every month.

The baseline survey, documented here, was implemented in January 2012 - January 2013. There is no midline survey for this study. The endline survey will start in January 2015.