recent studies confirm that teachers continue to have low levels of accountability and motivation.

Providing information that empowers stakeholders may be one way to stimulate public participation towards increasing the demand for quality services. In recent work Reinikka and Svensson (2004) provide evidence on the effect of a newspaper campaign initiated by the Ugandan government to boost the ability of schools and parents to monitor local officials’ handling of a large school grant program. They find that publishing in the newspaper diversion of primary school funds reduced capture of school funds from 80 percent to 20 percent. However informational campaigns that involve a consistent and replicable intervention, random assignment to intervention, and rigorous evaluation of outcomes are lacking.

This study is an evaluation of a community-based randomized controlled trial to determine the impact of information dissemination on learning and other school outcomes. The information campaign gave information to the community, village education committees and parent teacher associations on their oversight roles in school management as well as the services they are entitled to. Our hypothesis was that school outcomes may improve if the community has detailed information about the control it has over the schools and the services parents are entitled to from the school. The study was conducted in three Indian states, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh (MP) and Uttar Pradesh (UP). Even though all three states have devolved oversight roles to the community, they differ in the extent of oversight devolved.

The magnitude of the impact of such an intervention will depend on several factors. First, changing attitudes and practice patterns require ample time to take place, since they have been a way of life for decades. This is perhaps the greatest limitation of the current study, in which we are measuring outcomes after only two to four months. The exact nature of the intervention, the extent of oversight the community has over schools, and the extent of public action in response to the campaign will also be important. The relative population proportions and interests in public services of the different groups in the community will be one of the determinants of public action. If local elites do not have a stake in public services’ outcomes, public action may be captured (Bardhan and Mukherjee, 2002).

In Karnataka, a second intervention was added to encourage greater demand for quality schooling. In addition to the information on community oversight roles given in the first intervention, 1) the community was given information on the economic benefits of schooling and 2) there was explicit advocacy to the community in campaign meetings to monitor learning in schools. All else including the execution of the campaign remained identical between the first and second interventions.

The evidence from randomized evaluations so far on this topic is mixed. A recent randomized study in the Indian state of UP with a 5-6 month follow-up period found no impact of information on learning outcomes (Banerjee et al, 2006). The information was on the oversight roles of the community over public schools and was given by the village 3