Given the poor quality of many schools in developing countries (with high teacher absence, large class sizes, low levels of achievement and limited inputs) there is considerable policy interest in alternative approaches to making the education system better and more accountable. One much debated approach to improving social service delivery is to provide communities with information that will motivate them to mobilize and demand better services. This project evaluates the effect on education of providing people with information on: the resources that should be available to them, the mechanisms through which they can produce change, and current functioning of local schools.

Three interventions, designed jointly by Pratham, an NGO working on primary education in India, the Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab at MIT and the World Bank, have been randomly assigned in about 300 villages in eastern Uttar Pradesh, India, a populous region with low educational outcomes.

Intervention One: A team of three people visits various communities within villages and starts a conversation about education that covers the following issues: the current status of schools and education in the village, the quality of local schools, state mandated provisions for schools (such as pupil teacher ratios), infrastructure, midday meals, scholarships, and local funds available for education. People are asked if they know about the Village Education Committee and its membership, role and responsibilities. After two days of meetings in smaller communities around the village, people are asked to attend a village-wide meeting including the head of the village council, the head teacher of the primary school, members of the Village Education Committee. People are encouraged to ask for information from the local village leadership (any gaps in information are filled in by the Pratham worker) and to discuss issues that are constraining improvements in the schools.

Intervention Two: In addition to all the steps outlined above, villages are actively encouraged to participate in testing to see if children can read simple text and solve simple arithmetic problems. Volunteers put together a "report card" for each community, which is presented at the village-wide meeting.

Intervention Three: In addition to the above two interventions, community volunteers are trained to teach children how to read using an accelerated reading technique developed by Pratham, with the goal of teaching illiterate children to read in 3 months. This evaluation will test the effectiveness of this reading program as well as examine whether giving communities a concrete way to address a specific problem makes them more likely to mobilize on other dimensions as well.