SMS-Based School-Parents Communication Technology

We propose to test the effectiveness of sending parents high frequency SMS messages with information on their children’s activities and behavior at school, as well as advice on parental involvement with the school. Our main hypothesis is that frequent text messages will enhance parental awareness of their children’s education, providing them with effective tools to monitor and incentivize their effort. Even if the information is not novel for the parents, the low cost of this technology suggests that this could also help to allocate resources more efficiently within the schools by replacing time-consuming school-household communication technologies.