Econometrics, Centre for Studies in Social Sciences - CSSS, Calcutta, India
de janvier à juin 2015
Jyotsna JALAN is a Professor of Economics at the Centre for Studies in Social Sciences in Calcutta (CSSSC). She is an applied econometrician with a doctorate in economics from the University of California San Diego.
She has several research publications in internationally reputed journals on poverty, education, health etc. and on estimating the economic impacts of developmental programs. Her current areas of interest are estimation of economic impacts of policy interventions using both non-experimental (secondary) data as well as designing random social experiments.
She is interested in assessing the quality of primary education in government schools in rural areas in India with a special focus on West Bengal. Currently she is involved in a project that examines the role of theatre for the oppressed in raising awareness about social issues.
Dr. Jalan was a member of the State Advisory Council that has been set up by the School Education Department, Govt. of West Bengal to monitor and make policy recommendations on primary school education. Previously, she has also served as a member on the School Syllabus Committee and the Higher Education Committee set up by the Government of West Bengal.
Impact of theater in raising beneficiary awareness about rights and entitlements
Since independence, Government of India, civil society, private organizations have all sought to improve the lot of the poor and the vulnerable through different and often well designed schemes. Yet, poor delivery mechanism, local capture by the elite, corrupt practices, lack of awareness among the populace about their benefit entitlements often lead to failure of well-intentioned schemes.
In reality, awareness of government sponsored programs is low among eligible beneficiaries especially those that require individual application rather than community based. There has been limited academic research on the impact of providing information to citizens of their entitlements so that their community engagement increases. Even in the existing limited evidence, awareness campaigns were either a one-shot intervention and/or for a short period of time. Question is will more sustained awareness campaigns (several revisits) with greater involvement of the local population, their dialects, their specific problems have an impact in terms of greater participation in programs among potential beneficiaries, knowledge about their individual rights and steps that they can take recourse when denied their entitlements or their rights?
During fellowship at IAS-Nantes, Jyotsna JALAN will examine exactly this issue using theatre based awareness campaigns that have been enacted by a NGO since 1985 (however details about the performances have only been documented since 2002). Using modern evaluation techniques, she will ask the question whether sustained theatre based awareness campaigns are effective in disseminating information to the population about their entitlements and their rights. Unlike previous studies we will be examining the impact of (i) involving local population in the spread of awareness of entitlements and rights (ii) sustained awareness campaigns rather than a one time or a short duration campaign and (iii) impact of awareness campaigns on entitlements from government sponsored programs as well as individual rights of citizens in the face of social ills.