head in a village meeting organized for the purpose. Another study in India, also in UP, with a one-year follow-up finds a positive impact of information on receipt of health and other social services, based on self-reported outcomes (Pandey et al, 2007). The information given was on the oversight roles of the community with respect to health services, schools and village governance. The standardized campaign was done through several repeat village meetings over a period of 2 months and was structured to disseminate the information uniformly across villages via tools such as audio tape, posters and take-home leaflets. The results from these studies are not strictly comparable due to differences in campaign structure and outcome measurement. For this research agenda to inform policy dialogue, clearly more research is needed that is based on replicable ways of information dissemination, objective outcome measurement and follow up surveys over longer periods to see if impacts are sustainable.

In this study, based on a follow-up survey 2-4 months after the campaign, we find a positive impact in all three states, although there are differences in where the impact occurs. In both MP and UP, there is a positive impact of the campaign on reading in one of the three grades tested. In Karnataka, the average impact of both the interventions is positive on writing in one grade and on mathematics in the other grade tested. There are significant improvements in behavioral variables such as teachers’ engagement in teaching in MP and teacher attendance in UP. In Karnataka where teacher attendance and engagement in teaching at baseline were much higher than in the other two states, there is no observed impact on teacher effort. There is no additional impact of the second intervention that involved an added advocacy element compared to the first intervention in Karnataka.

The team intends to continue the study to examine if learning shows a systematic increase when the impact is measured over a longer time period and whether a campaign sustained over a longer time generates greater impact on school outcomes.

Section 2 describes the context and background for the study. Section 3 describes the methodology, section 4 presents findings from the baseline survey, section 5 provides results on the impact of the campaign and section 6 discusses the results.

# **2. Background and Context in India**

Since the mid 1990s, Indian states have decentralized control over local public services to the immediate communities, intending for improved accountability. The 73<sup>rd</sup> amendment to the Indian constitution in 1992 made it mandatory for Indian states to devolve control over public services and over funds for these services to the local government (called the _gram panchayat_<sup>_1_</sup> ). However it was left up to the states as to how much control to devolve. As a result, various states in India have devolved control over services to different extents.

> 1 A _gram panchayat_ is the lowest administrative unit consisting of two to three revenue villages on average. The elected village government ( _gram panchayat_ council with the _gram pradhan_ as its head) is formed at the _gram panchayat_ level.

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