Abstract
In addition to basic infrastructure, what school resources are important to improve learning? This question is hard to answer due to lack of availability of appropriate data. Collaboration between researchers at US universities and a large, well-established educational foundation in India enabled this study to overcome the challenge of data availability. The study used a unique 60-item instrument—with data from 88 government schools—that generated 8 different indices of school resources. The article finds that in schools with more learning-specific facilities and more co-curricular activities children perform well in math, all else being equal. This article discusses the study’s limitations and implications for research, policy and practice.
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We acknowledge excellent support from the Azim Premji Foundation’s Child Friendly School Initiative program team, including its leaders, Rudresha S. and Uma Shankar Periodi. D. D. Karopady, former head of Research and Documentation at the Azim Premji Foundation, also provided invaluable guidance during the course of the study.
Madhur Chandra’s time on the project was supported in part by a Pre-doctoral Training Grant from the Institute of Education Sciences, US Department of Education (Award # R305B090011) to Michigan State University. The opinions expressed here are those of the authors and do not represent the views of the Institute, the US Department of Education, or Michigan State University.
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Chudgar, A., Chandra, M., Iyengar, R. et al. School resources and student achievement: Data from rural India. Prospects 45, 515–531 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11125-015-9360-3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11125-015-9360-3