Question – 1: What is
School Development Plan and who prepares this?
Answer: The concept of School Development Plan is not new in
the State as emergence of school education in Sikkim in 19th Century
followed the same pattern of planning for individual school by the then School Committee. First the numbers of
children in the school neighbourhood were counted and master was appointed.
Estimation of requirement of straws for thatch, woods for poles and pillars and
bamboos for partition was done by the school committee and accordingly the
materials and man power were collected from the communities to erect school
building in the centrally located areas of the village. So the schools which
were established in earlier days in Sikkim (if not shifted later on) are found
properly mapped. The present concept of School Development Plan can be said as
the reformed form of School Development Plan which our forefathers had started
in Sikkim. Therefore, in short, we can say that School Development Plan is a document with a list of activities
prepared by a school on the basis of its ‘at hand status’ which are to be
conducted in future to achieve the targeted objectives in targeted timeframe (short
term or long term) with appropriate strategies and plan of actions.
School
Management Committee prepares this plan every year.
Question – 2: Who are the members of School Management
Committee and what is its tenure?
Answer: As per
RTE Act, the School Management Committee at elementary level consists of the
elected representative of the local authority, parents or guardians of the
children admitted in the school and teachers. The sharing of the composition
will be as under:
a)
75% parents or guardians of the
children admitted in the school (parents or guardians of children belonging to
disadvantaged group or weaker section of the society are to be given
proportionate representation in the Committee)
b)
25% representatives of
teachers, panchayat and senior citizen of the society
c)
50% members of the Committee
should be women
This
means that there should be minimum 12 (twelve) members in School Management
Committee which will at least
accommodates school head, teacher and local authority/community leader as mentioned
in column (3) of the table below. The compositions and proportions of School
Management Committees as per the mandate of RTE Act is given below for an
example –
No. of Members in SMC
|
Proportion
|
Women members in SMC
|
Parent/guardian members
|
Members from teachers, head
teachers/ panchayat/ senior citizen/ academician, etc.
|
(1)
|
(2)
|
(3)
|
(4)
|
12 members
|
09
|
03
|
06
|
16 members
|
12
|
04
|
08
|
20 members
|
15
|
05
|
10
|
24 members
|
18
|
06
|
12
|
28 members
|
21
|
07
|
14
|
..
|
..
|
..
|
..
|
The
patterns of compositions of School Management Committee go like this. However,
the size of the School Management Committee should be such that to support the
development of the school on its fullest possible ways and means.
Furthermore,
RTE Act recognizes the School Management Committee consist of the members
selected by the elected representative of the local authority, parents or
guardians of the children admitted in the school and teachers in above
proportion. The School Management Committee constituted by school head and
teachers without consulting the stakeholders prescribed under the Act may not
consider recognized.
The
Chairman of the Committee should be a parent or guardian and the school Head
acts as Ex-officio Convenor of the Committee.
The
committee reshuffles once in two years (bi-annual reshuffling) in consultation
with the local authority, parents or guardians of the children admitted in the
school and teachers of that school. More importantly, there should be separate management committee for elementary level as per the composition pattern of RTE Act if the school is a composite school.
Question – 3: Why is it
necessary to prepare School Development Plan?
Answer: Sub-section 1 & 2 of
Section 22 of RTE Act, 2009 which
came into force on 1st April 2010, has mandated that every School Managing Committee must prepare
School Development Plan.
The Model Rules under the
Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act, 2009 specify following purpose
of preparing School Development Plan:
1.
The School Management Committee shall prepare a School
Development Plan at least three months before the end of the financial year in
which it is first constituted under the Act.
2.
The School Development Plan shall be a three year plan
comprising three annual sub-plans
3.
The School Development Plan, shall contains the following
details –
(a)
Estimates of class-wise enrolment for each year;
(b)
Requirement, over the three year period, of the number of
additional teachers, including Head Teachers, subject teachers and part time
teachers, separately for Classes I to V and Classes VI to VIII, calculated,
with reference to the norms specified in the Schedule;
(c)
Physical requirement of additional infrastructure and equipments over the three year
period, calculated, with reference to the norms and standards specified in the
Schedule.
(d)
Additional financial requirement over the three year period,
year-wise, in respect of (b) and (c) above, including additional requirement
for providing special training facility specified in section 4, entitlements of
children such as free text books and uniforms, and any other additional
financial requirement for fulfilling the responsibilities of the school under
the Act.
4.
The School Development Plan should be signed by the
Chairperson/Vice Chairperson and Convenor of the School Management Committee
and submitted to the local authority before the end of the financial year in
which it is to be prepared.
The Model Rules has been
formulated to help operationalize the Act. The reason of specifying the preparation
of School Development Plan taking 3 year perspectives is to enable the States
to fulfill all the provisions guaranteed by RTE Act within three years.
Moreover the preparation
of School Development Plan facilitates the School Management Committee to be
specific about their requirements and targets to work for the school. Planning
also helps them to identify the problems being faced by the schools.
Question – 4: What should
be the Objectives of School Development Plan?
Answer: Broadly, the objectives of
preparing School Development Plan are as under:
- To ensure universal
enrolment, retention, Quality and completion of elementary cycle at appropriate
age.
- To ensure
child-friendly, barrier free, safe and attractive school environment for
pedagogical processes..
- To ensure Special
Training to Out of School Children of school neighbourhood to put them in the
age appropriate class.
- To ensure physical
infrastructure along with all weather school buildings.
- To ensure higher order
learning in children with holistic development.
- To ensure community
and civil society partnership in all developmental activities of the school
Question – 5: What is School Neighbourhood?
Answer: School Neighbourhood is nothing but the service area of a school which is
to be in the distance of comfortable and
safe walking distance for a child from his house to school considering all
natural barriers. This is not the imaginary aerial walking distance. The ‘comfortable
and safe walking distance’ for the
children attending primary school is 1 kilometer and for upper primary 3
kilometer. The following sketch is school neighbourhood of ‘X’ Primary school.
Question – 6: How do we know the area/boundary of school
neighbourhood?
Answer: Earmarking of school neighbourhood
is very important and falls under the mandates of RTE Act. It should be done by
the BRC Coordinators and BAC Level Assistant Directors in the supervision of the
Joint Director, District HRRDD Office. Since we don’t have problem of boundary
of jurisdiction of BRCs, we have to go for earmarking the boundary of jurisdiction
of Cluster Resource Centre taking landmark like river, land ridges, trees,
boulder, road, etc. After that the
boundaries of the schools falling under that cluster are to be earmarked on the
basis of accessibility of individual school for the children (i.e. 1 km walking
distance from household to school in case of primary and 3 km in case of Upper
primary). The diagram below shows an example of school neighbourhood area:
The dotted line shows school
neighbourhood area of Dugalakha JHS.
Sometimes
it happens that some households may remain outside school neighbourhood on 1 km
or 3 km walking distance norms as mentioned above and there is no other school
in surrounding of those households which is nearer than this school.
The children of 6 to 14 year age group of such
households should be recorded separately and if the number of such children is
10 or more than that, an alternative school (an EGS Centre) can be opened in
such place.
Question – 7: How to prepare School Development Plan?
Answer: Preparation of School Development Plan involves following
three major steps (A, B & C):
A.
Status
Assessment – Diagnostic Activities and listing of Problems
Firstly, the School Managing Committee
conducts household survey of the school neighbourhood to record the
status of age-wise children population in the age group of 5 to 14 years, listing
of Out of school Children within the population of 6 to 14 years in age-wise and
academic level-wise basis (updation of Village Education Register if
available in the school). Prepare VER if not available in the school. (Every
have to maintain Village Education Register wherein record of children of every
household is recorded)
Secondly, School Managing Committee
conducts institutional survey of the school and record all the
information related to infrastructure and infrastructure requiring repairs, Teaching learning Equipment, children
achievements, students’ enrolment, teacher availability, attendance status of
children and teachers.
Thirdly, assessment of the
available status of school in respect of all aspects collected as above and identification
of problems related to all assessed aspects. Suppose while doing
assessment, it is found that the school has 100 students in primary classes and
2 teachers. This shows that there is the issue of teacher shortage. In the same
way, 50% children acquired ‘E’ grade in last examination. This shows that the
classroom teaching or skill development activities in school are poor. It has
two problems (i) Shortage of teachers and (ii) Teachers are not skilled with
better pedagogical practices. Accordingly, the list of problems identified may
be like this:
a.
School has common toilet but there is no separate toilet for girls.
b.
20% children remain absent in the school per day.
c.
Shortage of two
teachers
d.
50% children scored
‘E’ grade
e.
10 children out of 120
children in the age group of 6 to 14 years are out of school, etc.
B.
Prioritization
of Problems
Firstly, the problems
identified during diagnostic activities are to be prioritized on the basis of
its gravity. For example (as per above example):
a.
Shortage of two teachers
b.
In average 20% children remain absent in the school per day
c.
10 (ten) children in
the age group of 6 to 14 years are out of school
d.
50% children scored
‘E’ grade
e.
School has common toilet but there is no separate toilet for girls, etc.
Secondly, segregation of problems
in terms of its solution level like SMC cannot afford to construct new
classroom so its proposal should be forwarded to Cluster Resource Centre and
improvement students’ attendance can be solved at school level.
Now, we have to convert
the problems/problems into desired outcomes/goals which are to be achieved at
the end of the year as in the following table:
Sl.
No.
|
Problems/Problems
|
Desired Outcomes/Goals
|
Solution level
|
1
|
Shortage
of two teachers
|
To make full set of teachers in the school
|
Place demand in higher level
|
2
|
In
average 20% children remain absent in school per day
|
To ensure 100% attendance of the children in the school
|
SMC level
|
3
|
10 (ten) children in the age group of 6 to 14 years
are out of school
|
Enrolment of 10 out of school children in the school
|
SMC level
|
4
|
25% children scored ‘E’ grade in last assessment
|
To reduce the percentage children scoring ‘E’ from 25% to ‘0’%
|
SMC level
|
5
|
School has common toilet but
there is no separate toilet for girls
|
To provide separate girls toilet to girl children
|
Place demand in higher level
|
C. Devising Actions/Steps
to achieve Desired outcomes/Goals and Cost.
The detailing of the problems
and converting it into goals, automatically indicates the general idea of achieving the set goals. But every
goal has series of relevant action points which lead to its achievement. Many
of the bigger plans fail because of ignoring this step. So this step has been
considered significant while preparing a plan.
Example:
To solve the issue of
shortage of teachers in the school, the SMC may represent Cluster Office/Block
Office/District Office. As such the Actions can be –
First step: Representation by School Management
Committee to Cluster Resource Coordinator to demand teachers, if not solved
Second Step: School Management Committee conducts a meeting and engage
volunteer teacher from among the educated unemployed youths of the village till
the teachers join school,
Third Step: They make representation to Block Resource Coordinator
to demand teachers, if not solved,
Fourth Step: They make representation to District Office to demand
teachers
and so on.
But it
is important to decide by the School Management Committee that how long SMC
waits in one step for fulfilment of its demands. The fixing duration/timeline
should be on the basis of the seriousness of demands. School
management Committee have to follow the timeline strictly. It may also add more
steps above, upto Fourth, fifth steps.
Some more examples of
devising steps
Sl.
No
|
Desired Outcomes/Goals
|
Actions/Steps to achieve the targeted goals
|
Remarks
|
1
|
To make full set of teachers in the school
|
Step-1. Representation to
Cluster Office/Block Office/District Office to demand Teachers
Step-2. Mobilize panchayats, community, NGO and local youths to contribute for the placement of
temporary volunteer teachers till regular teachers join school.
(and so on)
|
Add more steps to
mobilize community to work for schools and talk for school. Monitor
continuously and continue the follow-ups as per the demand of the situation
but never forget the goal that has to be achieved at the end of the year.
|
2
|
To ensure 100% attendance of the children in the
school
|
Step-1: Reconsider the reasons
of absence of children as per the findings of the survey conducted
Step-2: (for example, if your finding is
‘children think school is not interesting’) Conduct a meeting of School
Management Committee and invite an expert of school environment management
and a pedagogue. Place your problem and ask them to react, then make further
plan to ahead or you may invite an educational planner along with them who
will suggest further planning.
Step-3: Constitute an Eminent
Mother Group to monitor children’s attendance
(and so on)
|
Mobilize mothers of the children, panchayats and
local NGOs to work on it.
The SMC members who often wander village due to
his occupation may also be of great use to track children’s absenteeism.
Discuss the points like
a. How to make school environment
welcoming to children?
b. What type of teaching learning
processes can attract children to school? Etc.
(Blindly
forcing them to come to school may lead to any mishaps – be sensitive towards
children. Explore what they want.)
|
3
|
Enrolment of 10 out of school children in the
school
|
Step-1: Visit the house of the
out of the school children and convince/ motivate parents to enroll them in the
school. (Conduct motivation camps)
Step-2: Bring them to school and
enroll in age appropriate class;
Step-3: Then admit them in the nearest
Special Training Centre.
Step-4: Track them in the
Special Training Centre also and bring them to school after above centre
provides desired certificate.
(and so on)
|
Most of the out of school children are the
Children with Special Needs (special children) and their parents do not want
to expose their children in the society and many of them feel ashamed to let
other know his/her child is special.
If the problem is severe, approach Cluster
resource Coordinator/ Block Resource Coordinator or SSA office and request
for the conduct of mobilization/ motivation camps. SSA can conduct such
programme in your village if you have genuine problem.
(If not, explore more)
|
4
|
To reduce the percentage of children scoring ‘E’
from 25% to ‘0’%
|
Step-1: Reconsider the reasons
of poor performance of children as per the findings of the survey conducted
Step-2: (Reasons may be more.
If reason is the children do not get time to study at home, then). Make “Children’s
Study Time at Home” the main agenda for every parent-teacher meeting.
Step-3: Start tracking children
and reasons of poor performance
Step-4: Compile the tracking report
and plan further
(and so on)
|
Suggest parents the simple way to support
children at home like
-
let them go through their school bag before brunch in the morning and at
night,
-
let them be free of family stress and sound sleep at night,
-
let them feel secure/safe
-
express love and encourage to be learned
(Don’t be negative but sometimes tuition going
children only do better, if so, conduct authentic survey on it and report
higher authority of the HRD Department)
|
5
|
To provide separate girls toilet to girl children
|
Step-1: Place demand to Cluster Resource Coordinators, Block
Resource Coordinators, District Office, State office, Block Development
Officer, Gram Panchayat, etc.
Step-2: Report
Cluster Resource Coordinator if school got said toilet from BDO office and in
the same way report BDO office if school got toilet from SSA. Don’t take
facility from both sides.
(and so on)
|
Grown up girl children face problem due to lack
of girls’ toilet in the school. Because of this, many girl children remain
absent during their monthly periods. School may keep sanitary pads in girls’
toilet for their emergency use and a lady teacher may be made in-charge of
that.
The schools are being provided Toilets and
drinking water under Total Sanitation Campaign (TSC) from BDO office. SSA
also provides toilet facilities for schools. School Management Committee may
request both the sources.
|
Lastly, all
the actions and steps are to be converted into estimated cost. However, it is to
note here that every action should be cost effective.
Question – 8: How many Chapters supposed to be there in
School Development Plan?
Answer: Broadly there would be Five Chapters in School Development Plan:
1.
Chapter – One
: General Information about School e.g. name of school, year of establishment,
location of the school, distance from cluster, block office, District office, area
of school neighbourhood, number of households, total
population, children population in school neighbourhood, literacy of the people
residing in school neighbourhood, etc.
2.
Chapter – Two :
Present Status of the school and school neighbourhood e.g. number of teachers
available in the school, student enrolment, number of building blocks, toilets,
separate girls’ toilet, drinking water connection, electricity connection,
playground, number of classrooms available, condition of classrooms and other
rooms, how much parents are involved in school activities by
school, regularity and punctuality of teachers’ and students’, availability of
teaching learning materials/equipment, games materials, number of out of school
children, students’ performance, etc.
3.
Chapter – Three
: Analysis of Progress achieved in last year’s plan targets OR progress
achieved as per the fund invested in the school, (grants received and
utilized). This chapter also includes the list of activities conducted last
year and the activity-wise expenditure incurred in conducting activities. List
of assets created also need to be included here.
4.
Chapter – Four
: Identification of problems according to the present status of school given in
“Chapter – Two”, listing of these problems identified, its prioritization
and Devising action/steps for solution during this plan period. Chapter – Three
may also indicates the problems while analyzing the progress achieved.
5.
Chapter – Five
: Estimation of cost of the Plan. The estimation and listing of
activity-wise cost should be done on the basis of the list of activities
prepared in Chapter – Four. Some of the activities can be done without
investing money like improvement of teacher
attendance, bringing out of school children in the school, etc. and the
activities like household survey, construction of toilets, additional rooms,
etc. require fund. The cost estimation should be done accordingly.
Question – 9: What are
these Chapters?
Answer: The Chapters would be:
1.
School Neighbourhood
profile
2.
Present Status of
School
3.
Achievements in Last
Year’s Plan
4.
Problems Identified
and devised actions for solution
5.
Budget
Question – 10: Could you give an example of making budget
citing examples actions/Steps as above?
Answer: Preparing
budget is very simple if the chapters included contain genuine information. The
sample budget is prepared on the basis of the examples cited above. The
financial is given in rupees.
Sample Budget for Primary School
|
|
Activities
|
Unit Cost
|
Approved last year
|
Proposal this year
|
Phy
|
Fin
|
Phy
|
Fin
|
1
|
School Grant
|
5000
|
|
|
1
|
5000
|
2
|
Teacher Grant (for two teachers)
|
500
|
|
|
2
|
1000
|
3
|
Maintenance Grant
|
7500
|
|
|
1
|
7500
|
4
|
Ancillary Grant (for 100 children)
|
37
|
|
|
100
|
3700
|
5
|
Stationary Grant
|
1000
|
|
|
1
|
1000
|
6
|
Separate toilet for girls
|
20000
|
|
|
1
|
20000
|
7
|
Management Cost
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
a.
Household Survey (Suppose there
are 100 Households)
|
05
|
|
|
100
|
500
|
|
b.
School Survey
|
100
|
|
|
01
|
100
|
|
c.
To go cluster centre to demand teachers
|
00
|
|
|
0
|
00
|
|
d.
To go Block Office to demand teachers (one time)
|
50
|
|
|
15
|
750
|
|
e.
To go District Office to demand teachers (one time)
|
100
|
|
|
15
|
1500
|
|
f.
To engage Volunteer teachers
|
2000
|
|
|
02
|
48000
|
|
g.
To conduct meeting to make 100% attendance inviting expert
of school environment, educational planner & pedagogue (one time)
|
1500
|
|
|
1
|
1500
|
|
h.
Monthly SMC meetings (for 15 members)
10 times in a year
|
1000
|
|
|
15
|
15000
|
|
Total
|
|
|
|
|
105550
|
Note: “Phy” means physical unit that
indicates the physical number like 15 number of SMC members and “Fin” means Financial unit i.e. `15000/-
Sample Budget for Junior High
School
Sl. No.
|
Activities
|
Unit Cost
|
Approved
last year
|
Proposal
this year
|
Phy
|
Fin
|
Phy
|
Fin
|
1
|
School Grant
|
7000
|
|
|
1
|
7000
|
2
|
Teacher Grant (for two teachers)
|
500
|
|
|
10
|
5000
|
3
|
Maintenance Grant
|
10000
|
|
|
1
|
10000
|
4
|
Ancillary Grant (for 100 children)
|
65
|
|
|
200
|
13000
|
5
|
Stationary Grant
|
2500
|
|
|
1
|
2500
|
6
|
Separate toilet for girls
|
20000
|
|
|
1
|
20000
|
7
|
Management Cost
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
a.
Household Survey (Suppose there
are 100 Households)
|
05
|
|
|
150
|
750
|
|
b.
School Survey
|
100
|
|
|
01
|
100
|
|
c.
To go cluster centre to demand teachers
|
00
|
|
|
0
|
00
|
|
d.
To go Block Office to demand teachers (one time)
|
50
|
|
|
15
|
750
|
|
e.
To go District Office to demand teachers (one time)
|
100
|
|
|
15
|
1500
|
|
f.
To engage Volunteer teachers
|
2000
|
|
|
02
|
48000
|
|
g.
To conduct meeting to make 100% attendance inviting
expert of school environment, educational planner & pedagogue (one time)
|
1500
|
|
|
1
|
1500
|
|
h.
Monthly SMC meetings (for 15 members)
i.
10 times in a year
|
1000
|
|
|
15
|
15000
|
|
Total
|
|
|
|
|
125100
|
The fund shown against the serial
number 1 to 5 in the table is allocated yearly.
Question – 11: Do we need to fill the formats?
Answer:
Definitely. Formats are planner’s food-godown, keeping it empty means you die
with hunger.
**************
