Psychosocial skills and Aspirations: Evaluating the impact of a long-term intervention in India

Most people would agree that a good education is important for success in society. Better-educated children get the better jobs and are less likely to commit crimes or engage in other forms of risky behaviour. A good education encompasses more than competence in the 3 R’s; what is also valued is the building up of confidence, self-esteem, motivation and aspirations. Economists are now increasingly concerned with understanding how such psychosocial competencies affect socio-economic outcomes, and whether the failures in building such competencies are critical for children from disadvantaged backgrounds. In this study we examine the impact of long-term intervention targeting predominantly psychosocial competencies on children from disadvantaged backgrounds, living in adverse conditions. Although the precise ways in which these competencies are formed and affect individuals is a subject of ongoing investigation, it is clear that they are a vital determinant of future outcomes. While this clearly renders the question of the malleability and best approach to building up such competencies relevant and important, it has not yet been explored in the literature.

This work is in line with a growing literature emphasizing the importance of a wider range of competencies in child development than has traditionally been examined in economics. The main question we ask in this study is whether interventions can have an effect on a multidimensional range of children’s competencies. There is a large literature in economics and other social sciences establishing the importance of cognitive skills/IQ for child development and future outcomes. The innovation in the work of Akanksha and in this paper lies primarily in bringing other skills and competencies into this discourse. Hence, while the analysis in this paper incorporates a measure of cognitive ability, the emphasis is on psycho-social traits.

The aim is to evaluate the effectiveness of a long-term childhood intervention which provides non-formal education to school age children (6-18). This intervention is run by an NGO, Akanksha, for children living in the severely deprived slums of Mumbai.  While providing some support with school learning, working under the slogan “Be the change”, Akanksha (which means Aspiration in Hindi) focuses on raising children’s psychosocial competencies. Specifically it actively engages in raising self-esteem, sense of efficacy and aspirations through the use of workshops, drama, art and story-telling as part of the curriculum. It also aims to raise children’s cognitive abilities but using methods such as continuous close interaction with adults and diverse range of activities, rather than methods practiced in school based learning. Evidence on sustained intervention is scant as are studies examining the impact of interventions on a broader range of competencies than just the 3 R’s. This programme is, therefore, of tremendous interest as an opportunity to test whether psychosocial and cognitive competencies could be changed through long-term intervention.

In this study, we constructed two control groups of peers for children who have attended the programme until leaving formal schooling to analyse whether, compared to children from a similar environment and background, children enrolled in the programme (and today over 18 years of age) have demonstrably higher psychosocial skills and verbal ability as a result of the intervention. Parents of both those who attended the programme and peers (classmates and similar peers from the same neighbourhood) were interviewed as well.  This is an ex-post evaluation and hence requires detailed data on variables that affect both entry into the programme and determinants of the outcomes and data collection included games to measure attitudes towards risk, cooperation and discounting of time.