Supplementing measures of social accountability and enhancing understanding of accountability and students' achievement during the COVID-19 pandemic

这一扩充项目将通过增加公共支出措施和对学校、学校管理委员会以及来自母项目的一组学生和家长进行后续调查，丰富由国际发展部-教育与社会研究中心资助的母项目数据。家长项目已经为尼泊尔的学校教育做出了重大贡献，开发和测试了一套工具，收集有关学校表现和学生教育成果的信息，对这些数据的分析表明，学生学习与家长的知识、参与和赋权等问责措施之间存在密切联系。然而，由于尼泊尔的治理结构正在从中央治理系统向地方治理系统过渡，包括在教育部门，在母项目期间收集关于公共支出和服务提供的信息是不可行的。缺乏这些重要的问责措施限制了我们的调查结果。此外，自家长项目完成以来，与COVID-19相关的学校关闭极大地改变了学校、家长和学生的学习环境。这一变化具有破坏性，对一些学校和学生的负面影响大于其他学校和学生。为了加强我们的社会责任措施，并让我们了解COVID-19如何与社会责任和学生学习交叉，我们提出了以下四个目标：目标一。开展公共支出跟踪和服务提供情况调查，并与地方政府机构代表进行深入访谈，以将支出数据纳入我们的社会问责措施。对参与家长研究的学生、家长、校长和学校管理委员会/校董会（SMC/SB）进行跟进电话调查，以了解COVID-19相关的学校中断对他们的影响，以及中断对学生学习的影响。从巴拉特布尔大都市（BMC）收集学校教育考试（SEE）成绩。在10年级结束时参加的全国考试将于2021年3月对我们样本中的学生进行管理。将新收集的数据与现有的学生、家长和学校层面的数据联系起来，以估计COVID-19期间学校中断和问责对学生教育成果的影响。特别是，我们将探讨COVID-19后辍学率、出勤率和学生成绩（SEE分数）与疫情前相比的变化。我们会考虑家庭和学校的学习环境和支持结构等因素。我们亦会探讨不同的学校应对策略，以及这些策略是否与问责措施相关。我们会透过对学生分组进行分析，探讨学校干扰对部分学生的负面影响为何较其他学生为大。例如，我们将比较男性和女性、优势和弱势族裔群体、父母受过高等教育和教育程度较低的学生、父母是国际移民和没有国际移民的学生，以及在早期评估中表现良好的学生与表现不佳的学生。这项研究将产生重要的科学资源，包括：（1）在低收入背景下跟踪公共支出的措施;（2）学校、学校管理委员会、家长和学生问责的后续措施;以及（3）在我们理解COVID-19期间问责与学生成绩之间关系的科学进步。我们将通过地方传播研讨会向科学家和政策制定者广泛提供这些研究结果，以分享研究结果，通过ICPSR和英国数据服务公开数据，并通过在国家和国际会议上的演讲以及科学文章和政策简报的出版物公开数据。

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, advantagedand 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, andstudents; 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.