Can Information Campaigns Raise Awareness and Local Participation in Primary Education

A wide circle of development thinkers, policy-makers, and practitioners believes that the participation of local ommunities in public services is instrumental in achieving better development outcomes. This has sparked the creation of new (or revival of existing) local agencies around the developing world. Yet, more often than not, these new institutions are constrained - they have no real authority to hire and fire public providers, no real resources to use at their discretion, and no real responsibility for service delivery outcomes. Nevertheless, there is a sense amongst policy-makers and practitioners that what these institutions might do is, provide a "voice" to the people, a forum for "collective action", and facilitate "bottom-up" or "demanddriven" initiatives that make a difference. The hope is that local agencies will strengthen people's participation in improving the functioning of basic services, and thereby lead to better delivery and outcomes. In India, decentralised participation has been given central importance in the primary education sector through the roll-out of a massive government push for universalisation of elementary education (Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA)). Through habitationlevel planning and community participation, it is envisaged that the village education committee will take decisions based on local needs and therefore will be able to effectively use the resources allocated for primary education at the local level. In the design and implementation of SSA, local action is an essential element in the process of ensuring universal enrolment, retention, and achievement of a satisfactory level of learning. The village education committees (VECs) are seen as the mechanism through which public funds for education services will flow to the village, through which planning, implementation and monitoring will be coordinated. However, for local groups to lead any substantial change in school governance or functioning, it is essential that the groups are active, well-informed and able to take decisions. The existence of committees, by itself, cannot be an effective tool for change, if people are unaware of the existence of these committees, do not know their responsibilities, the resources that are available and how decisions can be made. This information gap may be particularly salient, if members of the local agencies are