Supplementing Measures of Social Accountability and Enhancing Understanding of Accountability and Students' Achievement During the COVID-19 Pandemic - Student, Parent, SMC, and Head Teacher Surveys, 2024

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The Student Survey measures students’ backgrounds, knowledge, aspirations, satisfaction, and perception of their classroom environment. It also measures teaching quality and the impact of lockdowns and remote learning on education during the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as the support provided by schools through online services or other means, and the time allocated for learning. The 60-minute student interviews were conducted in a private setting, either at the student's home or a location where the student was comfortable answering the survey questions. The survey consisted of two parts: survey questions and a Life History Calendar (LHC). The interview was conducted in Nepali using a computer-assisted personal interviewing program. The LHC, including the COVID calendar, was designed in paper and pencil format. Out of 2858 eligible students, 2053 students completed the survey resulting in a response rate of 72%. The Parent Survey includes household-level measures of household size, composition, socio-economic background (ethnicity, social status), education, occupation, wealth, assets, and income; challenges faced by parents of school children during the COVID-19 pandemic and its impacts on education; and responses and actions the school undertook for the students and their education. The survey also includes individual-level measures such as parents’ perceptions of teaching quality, parental action related to gathering information about alternative schools, barriers/facilitators to exercising school choice, and awareness and participation in civil society organizations seeking to influence governance of education. The 60-minute parent interviews were conducted in a private setting, either at the respondent's home or a location where the respondent was comfortable answering the survey questions. This survey consisted of two parts: the survey questions and the Life History Calendar (LHC). The interview was conducted in Nepali using a computer-assisted personal interviewing program. The LHC, including the COVID calendar, was designed in paper and pencil format. Out of 2418 eligible parents, 2079 parents completed the survey resulting in a response rate of 86%. The School Management Committee (SMC) survey includes assessments of the SMC's (for public schools) or the school board’s (for private schools) duties and responsibilities, particularly focusing on their actions and responses during the COVID-19 pandemic. It measures various aspects of their accountability, including delegation of tasks, management, performance evaluation, information dissemination, pandemic response strategies, and enforcement of policies to ensure the effective functioning of the school amidst the challenges posed by COVID-19. Out of 91 eligible chairpersons, 89 chairpersons completed this survey resulting in a response rate of 98%. The Head Teacher data consists of two parts: the survey data and the COVID-19 school calendar data. The data includes measures of the principal's performance, information, and enforcement; actions taken by the school amidst the challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic; the management of classes; interactions with students; and the overall operational decisions made to ensure the smooth functioning of the educational institution during COVID-19. Out of 95 eligible head teachers, 89 head teachers completed the survey resulting in a response rate of 94%.

This augmentation project will enrich the parent project data funded by DFID-ESRC by adding measures of public expenditure and conducting a follow-up survey of schools, school management committees, and a sub set of students and parents from the parent project. The parent project has already made significant contribution to Nepali school education by developing and testing a set of tools to gather information about school performance and student educational outcomes. Analysis of these data revealed strong associations between student learning and accountability measures such as parents' knowledge, engagement, and empowerment. However, because of the ongoing transition in Nepal's governance structure from a centralized to a local governance system, including in the education sector, it was not feasible to collect information about public expenditure and service delivery during the parent project. The lack of these important accountability measures has limited our findings. Additionally, since the parent project was completed, COVID-19 related school closures have dramatically changed the learning environment for schools, parents, and students. This change has been disruptive, negatively affecting some schools and students more than others. To enhance our social accountability measures and inform our understanding of how COVID-19 intersects with social accountability and student learning we propose the following four aims: Aim One. Conduct a public expenditure tracking and service delivery survey and in-depth interview with representatives of local government bodies to add expenditure data to our measures of social accountability. Aim Two. Conduct follow-up phone surveys with students, parents, school principals, and School Management Committees/School Boards (SMC/SB) that participated in the parent study to understand how COVID-19 related school disruptions have affected them and how disruptions have impacted student learning. Aim Three. Collect School Education Examination (SEE) scores from Bharatpur Metropolitan City (BMC). This national exam taken at the end of grade 10 will be administered to students in our sample in March 2021. Aim Four. Link the newly collected data with existing student, parent, and school-level data to estimate the effect of school disruptions and accountability during COVID-19 on student education outcomes. In particular, we will explore how dropout rates, attendance rates, and student achievement (SEE scores) have changed after COVID-19 compared to before the pandemic. We will consider factors like learning environment and support structures at home and school. We will also explore different school coping strategies and whether these strategies are correlated with accountability measures. We will investigate how school disruptions have a greater negative impact on some students more than others by conducting our analyses among sub-groups of students. For example, we will compare males and females, advantaged and disadvantaged ethnic groups, students with highly educated and less educated parents, students with and without parents who are international migrants, and students who performed well in earlier assessments compared to those who did not perform well. This study will generate important scientific resources including: (1) measures of public expenditure tracking in a low income context; (2) follow-up measures of accountability from schools, school management committees, parents, and students; and (3) scientific advancement in our understanding of the relationship between accountability and students' achievement during COVID-19. We will make these findings widely available to scientists and policy makers through local dissemination workshops to share findings of the study, making the data publicly available through ICPSR and the UK Data Service, and through presentations at national and international conferences and publications in scientific articles and policy brief.