Accountability from the grassroots in India
Project summary
This project explores the potential of community-based accountability relationships to raise children’s foundational learning outcomes, with a focus on the most disadvantaged primary-school learners: namely those who are from poorer households and, within these, girls. The research asks both whether and how changes occur when school actors are supported to view their accountability as being primarily to their local community and their goal as being to raise all children’s learning.
To do this, the project evaluates a grassroots intervention that supports school actors to work directly with their communities to develop a shared understanding of children’s learning levels, collaborate in planning how to raise them, and facilitate action both inside and outside the classroom.
In addition to analysing changes in children’s learning, the research examines the intervention’s capacity to create changes in school-community relations, and teachers’ attitudes, perceptions and actions in the classroom.
Research team
Principal Investigator: Professor Ricardo Sabates
Lead Co-Investigator in India: Dr Suman Bhattacharjea
Co-investigators: Dr Ben Alcott; Dr Rukmini Banerji; Professor Pauline Rose; Dr Wilima Wadhwa
India partners: Pratham Education Foundation
Duration
January 2018 – December 2023
Funder
Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) – Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO)
Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation
Publications
Improving children’s foundational learning through community-school participation: Experimental evidence from rural India
Kumar, D., Sunder, N., Sabates, R. and Wadhwa, W. 2024
Labour Economics, 102615
Parental involvement in children’s schooling and learning in the school, home and community in rural India
Cashman, L. 2023
Apollo - University of Cambridge Repository
The nature of parental involvement and its impact on learning outcomes in Sitapur district, India
Middha, M. September 2022
MA Dissertation University College London
Understanding the accuracy of teachers’ perceptions about low achieving learners in primary schools in rural India: An empirical analysis of alignments and misalignments
Wadmare, P., Nanda, M., Sabates, R., Sunder, N. and Wadhwa, W. 2022
International Journal of Educational Research Open, 3:100198
A multi-stage approach to qualitative sampling within a mixed methods evaluation: Some reflections on purpose and process
Ramanujan, P., Bhattacharjea, S. and Alcott, B. 2022
Canadian Journal of Program Evaluation, 36(3), 355–364
Collaboration or Compliance: A multiple case study approach exploring teachers' perspectives on interactions with parents within the framework of social accountability in rural Sitapur, India
Nanda, M. 2022
Apollo - University of Cambridge Repository
Parental involvement in children’s learning: the role of household wealth in rural India
Cashman, L., Sabates, R. and Alcott, B. 2021
International Journal of Educational Research. 105:101701.
Understanding head teachers’ responsibility towards children’s foundational learning in rural India: Focusing on their perceptions, attitudes, barriers, and actions
Kobayashi, C. 2021
Apollo - University of Cambridge Repository
Education accountability relationships between schools, communities, and government in India
Bhattacharjea, S. and Ramanujan P. 2020
ESRC-FCDO Research for Policy and Practice
Accountability from the grassroots: Children’s foundational reading and arithmetic in Sitapur District, Uttar Pradesh
Sabates, R., Bhattacharjea, S. and Wadhwa, W. 2020
Research and Policy Paper No. 20/6
Parental perceptions, family economic status and parental involvement in children's learning and schooling in rural India
Cashman, L.M. 2019
MPhil Thesis, University of Cambridge, Cambridge.
Assessment for action: An organic, free-range approach to raising learning for all
Alcott, B., Rose, P., Sabates. R, Cherfils, M. and Alonso, M. L. 2018
Research and Policy Paper No. 18/5
Blogs
Scalability of educational innovations in West Africa: The role of civil society organisations
Leslie Casely-Hayford, Ricardo Sabates, Dr Adedeji and Fatu Yumkella, UKFIET, 9 January 2025
Parental involvement continues to be central for reducing school dropout: Evidence from India during the pandemic Subhasree Sarkar, Suman Bhattacharjea and Ricardo Sabates, UKFIET, 26 September 2022
Involving the community in raising children's foundational learning outcomes: Evidence from India Deepak Kumar, Suman Bhattacharjea and Ricardo Sabates, UKFIET, 18 July 2022
Contrasting teachers' expectations and practices of interactions with parents in rural Sitapur, India
Mansi Nanda, UKFIET, 4 October 2021
Engaging schools and communities to support children’s learning
Ricardo Sabates and Suman Bhattacharjea, Oriel Square Publishing, 7 October 2020
Think local: Support for learning during COVID-19 could be found from within communities
Ricardo Sabates, UKFIET, 16 April 2020
Parental perceptions and parental involvement in children’s education in rural India: Lessons for the current COVID-19 crisis
Laura Cashman, Suman Bhattacharjea and Ricardo Sabates, PAL Network Blog, 15 April 2020, and UKFIET, 1 May 2020
More than the sum of its parts: Internationally-comparable citizen-led assessments to ensure no child is left behind
Pauline Rose, PAL Network Blog, 8 July 2020
Make some noise so no one is left behind! Holla Bo!
Ricardo Sabates, The Impact Initiative, 21 October 2019
What ensures good quality research data?
Mansi Nanda, FERSA University of Cambridge Blog, 26 November 2018
Other media
Grassroots accountability: Placing schools in rural India at the heart of a community of learning
Faculty of Education news, October 2024
Reflexive approaches to survey design and implementation: Lessons from research on communities and schools in rural India
Bhattacharjea, S. and Ramanujan, P.
REAL Centre Seminar Series 24 November 2020
Sessions aimed at understanding accountability relations in education
PAHAL Knowledge Series
Sessions with Pratham fieldwork staff to co-create knowledge (Hindi)
PAHAL Knowledge Series
