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was on fleshing out factors that impede or facilitate successful completion of primary school
education among children living in diverse poverty situations in the three states of Andhra
Pradesh, Karnataka, and Uttar Pradesh. This necessitated a detailed focus on children, their
family, larger community, and the extant local education and health services within the context of
the larger socio-economic situation in the selected states and the specific study area. Box 1
provides an illustrative list of the research tools used to elicit and explore the data on which this
study rests.
Box 1: Research Tools
A1: Information collection through key informants for identification of households in diverse poverty
situations (Rural) – with special care to capture ‘diverse’ poverty contexts. For urban area – a geographic
location was selected for complete house listing.
A 2: House listing schedule (Rural) to capture basic socio-economic characteristics and children in
appropriate age group.
A 3: House listing schedule (Urban) to capture basic socio-economic characteristics and children in
appropriate age group.
B 1: Village profile schedule – to capture overall status of services, institutions (especially primary
schools), access to basic services health, immunisation, water etc.
B 2: Urban settlement profile – to capture overall status of services, institutions (especially primary
schools), access to basic services health, immunisation, water etc.
B 3: Household Schedule and interview schedule with mother or primary care provider in the household.
B 4: Health checklist to canvas with children in the selected household to capture age, height and weight,
immunisation, external observation of skin, hair colour, legs, vision, ear/hearing etc.
B 5: Observation checklist – developmental milestones of children, breast feeding, supplementary
nutrition, food habits, illness, disability etc.
B 6: Matrix for observation of 2 children from each household for detailed profile and adult-child
interaction.
C 1: Interview schedule – Aanganwadi Worker (ICDS), Primary School Teacher (Government Primary
School)
C 2: Interview Schedule – Healthcare Provider – Auxiliary Nurse and Midwife (ANM) and/or any other
local health service provider.
D 1: Format for cohort analysis in Government Primary School (GPS) – tracing children who enrolled in
academic year 1999-2000
D 2: Classroom observation checklist to capture school based activities, attitude and practices in the
classroom, mid-day meal programme and teaching – learning environment.
D 3: Guidelines for group activities with children in the 6 + age group
D 4: Information collected from the private school in the village/urban area
E 1: List of questions explored in Focus Group Discussions with the following:
- Women’s group
- Mixed group – including members of Village Education Committee (VEC), Panchayat, School
Development and Management Committee (SDMC)
- Adolescent girls and boys
An initial step, following the sanction of the research project, involved the preparation of the
research tools. The core research team debated and developed a matrix of research questions to
be explored in the study across all the identified social domains. The research tools were initially
pilot tested in one site each in Andhra Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, and Karnataka and were
subsequently revised after detailed interaction with researchers and field investigators in a three-
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