ACTIVE LEARNING: A NEW PATH FOR CLASSROOM TEACHING

Introduction

As we know, learning is endless process and everything makes us learn something or other in our daily life. Learning can be accidental or intentional. The focus of my paper here is active learning with reference to ‘Learning by Teaching’ which usually takes place in our schools. Hence, all the discussions included and situations mentioned here in the paper are concern to school education only.

A new term which emerged in last decade in the field of classroom teaching is ‘Active Learning’.  To be frank, many of us working in the field of education are still not clear about the meaning of ‘Active Learning’. Many think that ‘Active Learning’ is not other than ‘Activity-Based Learning’. Hence my intention of writing this paper is to clear this confusion in the context of ‘Learning by Teaching’.  

The most common method of teaching that the teachers have adopted since last so many decades is lecturing and still we found the teachers using this method even in primary classes. Further we had the belief that listening can implicate more learning and examples of which are seen in religious gatherings where guruji speaks non-stop and followers listen patiently. However, guruji cannot say that how many of his followers are actually listening to him and understanding what he is saying OR how much learning is being taken place among learners by his lecture. The condition of the teacher who uses lecture method in the classroom teaching would be the same as guruji and this type of teachers always need tests or exams to label the level of learning among learners by his teaching. Moreover, the lecture method hardly promotes long-term retention of information in learners which is an essential characteristic of an effective teaching. The amount of information retained by students declines substantially after ten minutes.[i]        

It is expected that the effective teaching for the children attending schools should implicate the following:

a)     Inclusive or Collaborative learning (leaves no scopes for any learner to fall behind)

b)     Higher order learning

c)     Higher order thinking and imaginations   

d)     Instill reading habits (stimulate learners’ passion for learning), and 

e)     Shape attitudes and viewpoints.

All the above outcomes include in Active Learning.

How pupils learn?

‘How a child learns?’ is a core question for a teacher. The teacher should know the answer of this question before he enters into his class. The teacher also should know that the answer of this question is always situational and the strategies designed to teach the learners of last years may not be fit for the learners of this year even if the class and the subject contents are same. Because of this, a good teacher always feels awkward when he hears any teacher saying – “I am teaching this subject in this class since last this many years, so I don’t have problem in teaching this subject.”

As a teacher we have the experience of learners’ heterogeneity in a classroom - the heterogeneity in respect of family background, personal behavior, personal health and most importantly learning pace. The difference in learning pace in the learner never let a teacher to take entire children of a class all along in same magnitude of learning. As a result, the children who learn slowly in comparison with the fellow learners fall behind. The advance countries like the United States of America has made an Act called ‘No Child Left Behind Act of 2001’[ii] to avoid this. In the context of Sikkim, till recent years (pre-RTE years) we used to hold back a child (system of making failed) in a class intentionally who does not perform satisfactory in the year-end examination. 

Teaching learning process is always been an experiment for an educator/teacher since time immemorial. There is no full-proof teaching process which can ensure cent percent learning among the learners. The main weapon that a teacher always relies on is the textbook though it has been considered as teaching materials like charts, globes, maps, etc. It is seen that many of the teachers hardly start scholastic activities without textbooks in the school. Thus we can say our teachers are habituated with the teaching through textbooks or contents incorporated in the textbooks or teachers are habituated in working on pre-packed assignments followed by the text in the textbooks. Due to this hardly few teachers conduct learning exercises without using textbooks. This we call the ‘Content-centered Teaching’ which is guided by the contents and ignores the learners’ learning moods and learning styles.     

[Now what are learners’ learning moods and learning styles? Is it necessary for a teacher to teach according to the learners’ moods or the styles preferred by them?]

It is always a priority for a teacher to understand the mood of the learners before actually starting the teaching activity in the classroom. Normally the learners have the hangover of previous activities in which they were engaged or made engaged. So a teacher needs to wipeout the earlier events from the mind of the learners and make them ready to engage in the new activity. Further, different learners have different styles of learning guided by their way of living, their surroundings and family backgrounds. As such, the style of teaching should be such that it suits the learners’ styles of learning. Students learn what they care about and remember what they understand.[iii] The chances of higher order learning will be more if the teaching style provides the scope of involvement of learners in the teaching learning process. We shall discuss in detail, how a teacher can involve the learners in teaching learning process in the sub-heading ‘Active Learning’. 

Active Learning

We have seen a normal class of a school. The readers those who are not a teacher may recall back their own class when they were students. The major activity in a classroom, generally we saw till date, is ‘teacher talks and students listen’. It is known to all that the classroom processes in our schools are still not fully democratic. Still there is lot of space for maintaining proximity between teachers and pupils in learning processes. Only brighter students, who are given access by teachers, are seen speaking with teachers (asking questions, sharing and expressing themselves). There is discrimination between high and low achievers. On the other hand, it is expected that the school should make a child capable of becoming responsible, productive and useful member of society. The performance of a child is nothing but the demonstration of different skills inculcated by her school. The skills may not be only cognitive or academic as we say education aims at all round development of a child. Till date, it is seen that every key player of the education system are giving undue focus on academic competencies only.

The situations described above are all conflicting to the conditions which promote active learning. Active Learning is a process wherein students are actively engaged in building understanding of facts, ideas, and skills through the completion of instructor directed tasks and activities. It is any type of activity that gets students involved in the learning process.[iv] This means that the Active Learning can be possible only by Active Pedagogy which demands a democratic environment in the classroom where every child speaks with teachers, asks questions, shares their ideas and even teacher respond them with warmth of love and positive attitudes. The low achievers and slow learners, as any case may be, do not feel ostracized and neglected. Every child enjoys coming to school. They feel every moment spent in school is the most joyful moment, means no place is there enjoyable than the school. Teacher inspires and appreciates children’s activities. Classroom walls are full of colourful charts generally made by students with clearly visible teachers’ (rational) comments. The school campus visually depicts the centre of learning (Knowledge – Gyana). A sense of piousness seizes everyone’s heart while entering into school campus. 

The classroom processes are more stimulating making the children to work together in groups or individual. Children are working together, cooperating, and talking without being afraid. They are laughing, clapping, reading, doing various activities, including cultural activities. Students can ask questions any time and are eager both to answer questions and ask questions, as well as answer each other’s questions. Teachers are attending all the children smiling. Students are so engross in activities that they hardly bother the happenings outside classroom. The buzz of activity overrules the whole environment even the class is being held outside classroom in open. Neither student nor teacher is bothered by the visit of someone from outside.

No students’ memorizing notes or contents from the textbooks. All teachers keep every records of students’ learning (maintaining detail records of students’ performance using different descriptive indicators) covering various aspects of child’s holistic development. Teachers respect potentialities of children, their efforts and hard works. Subject teachers share their views on the development in skills in an individual child, their weaknesses and strengths using specific checklists for different skills. No students are made inferior/ discouraged on the basis of poor grade. "Active Learning" is, in short, anything that students do in a classroom other than merely passively listening to an instructor's lecture.[v]

The treatment and involvement of learners in the way described above in learning process needs various pedagogical strategies. Active Pedagogy aims at the learning of individual students in its process. Thus the strategies requires meticulous designing keeping in view of learners’ styles of learning. Charles C. Bonwell while writing about ‘Active Learning: Creating Excitement in the Classroom’ has given some of the major characteristics associated with active learning strategies include[vi]:

a)     Students are involved in more than passive listening

b)     Students are engaged in activities (e.g., reading, discussing, writing)

c)     There is less emphasis placed on information transmission and greater emphasis placed on developing student skills

d)     There is greater emphasis placed on the exploration of attitudes and values

e)     Student motivation is increased (especially for adult learners)

f)      Students can receive immediate feedback from their instructor

g)     Students are involved in higher order thinking (analysis, synthesis, evaluation)

Obstacle

Our past has the experiences that every new change or reform has to face the obstacles. As such, this process also may face the obstacles. The probable obstacles can be the following:

a)     Teacher thinks himself expert in teaching and unwilling to switch over his teaching towards active learning

b)     Teacher may not be capable/qualified enough to devise active learning activities)

c)     Both teachers and students need time to adapt themselves in new environment of class

d)     Initially (because of sl. No. b & c) the process seems time consuming and the teacher may feel the risk of non-completion prescribed course or syllabi

e)     Devising active learning strategies takes too much pre-class preparation

f)      Large class size may restrict certain active learning strategies

g)     Lack or shortage of materials/resources in the school demanded by devised active learning strategies

h)     Lack or shortage of conducive spaces to conduct active learning activities

Risks

There is hardly little risk from pupils’ side if the strategies are devised to suit their learning situations. However, from teachers’ side the following risks may be seen:

a)     Teacher may not be confident enough to conduct active learning activity

b)     Teacher may not possess the appropriate skills to control the class while conducting active learning activity in the class

c)     Teacher may devise faulty active learning strategies resulting negative impact on learners

Conclusion

In the conclusion we can say that Active Learning is the process which targets higher order learning in the learners by means of various teaching methodologies. It is rightly said that Active learning is an umbrella term that refers to several models of instruction that focus the responsibility of learning on learners.[vii] ‘Activity-based Learning’ is only a strategy of active learning.

Right now, Active Learning is the best alternative for the teachers of our country especially who are teaching at elementary level to cope with the situations created by RTE Act. However, to switch over from the present pedagogical stage to active learning stage is easier said than done.  It needs time for all of us to change our mind set to accept it, adopt it and get adapted to it.  

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[i] Thomus, 1972

[ii] The No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 (NCLB) is a United States Act of Congress that is a re-authorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, which included Title I, the government's flagship aid program for disadvantaged students.

[iii] Ericksen, 1984, p. 51

[iv] Daniel Bell and Jahna Kahrhoff, Active Learning Handbook

[v] Donal R. Paulson & Jennifer L. Faust, California State University, LA

[vi] Charles C. Bonwell, bonwell@ix.netcom.com

[vii] Wikipedia – Active Learning

What is the difference between Continuous and Comprehensive Evaluation (CCE) and Continuous and Comprehensive Assessment (CCA) for an educator?

I have the loveliest experiences which prompted my mind to write this article. It goes back to almost 28 months when I used the acronym CCA in place of CCE in a paper meant for myself and got objected by a teacher trainer. The reaction was like this – “It should be CCE but may be by mistake you wrote CCA.”

I said, “No, it’s CCA, only CCA not CCE..he.he.”

She said, “Then what is difference between CCE and CCA; I mean ‘Evaluation’ and ‘Assessment’?

I replied “What your child’s teacher is doing is CCE and what you are doing for your child is CCA.”

It sounds so cheap but it is true to me and may be you as well. This was the first bump.

Later on may be after six months, while discussing on students’ learning assessment somewhere in an informal gathering, once again I mentioned about CCA and once again I encountered with lot of comments as it was the group of academic administrators, teacher trainers and teachers. It was really a vehement objection on the difference of meaning of ‘Evaluation’ and ‘Assessment’. They said, “Evaluation and assessment is same – just synonym.”  I am thankful that they spared me when I shared an example. The example was like this:

“Suppose I invited you for a dinner. I know you are fond of chicken curry. I prepared the same with my utmost cooking skills before your arrival. But I got it is over salted when I tasted it. What I did is I added little sugar and a cup of water and cooked for a while. After dinner you said, ‘It was the tastiest chicken curry I ever had…blah..blah.’

Here what I did is ‘Assessment’ and what you did is ‘Evaluation.’”       

My reader may think above discussions as fictitious and I accept it is written fictitiously but the persons who argued adamantly on this topic with me have to be happy that I am thankful to them.

Anyway, it is true that this has really triggered me seriously and my first target was dictionary meaning.

First I consulted some of the dictionaries which are with me that can be referred as:

ü  OXFORD Advanced Learner’s Dictionary

Assessment: noun 1 [Countable] an opinion or a judgment about somebody/something that has been thought about very carefully SYN – EVALUATION: a detailed assessment of the risk involved. ►What is your assessment of the situation? 2 [Uncountable] the act of judging or forming an opinion about somebody/something; written and oral exams and other forms of assessment ► Objective assessment of the severity of the problem was difficult. – see also CONTINUOUS ASSESSMENT 3 [Countable] an amount that has been calculated and that must be paid: a tax assessment.   

[CONTINUOUS ASSESSMENT – noun. BrE. A system of giving a student a final mark/grade based on work done during a course of study rather than on one exam]

Evaluate:  to form an evaluation of the amount, value or quality of something after thinking about it carefully SYN ASSESS: [verb + noun phrase] Our research attempts to evaluate the effectiveness of the different drugs. [verb + wh clause] We need to evaluate how well the policy is working.

ü  The Concise Oxford Dictionary

Assess: 1 a estimate the size or quality of. b estimate the value of (a property) for taxation, etc. 2 a fix the amount of and impose it on a person or community, etc. b fine or tax in or at a specific amount.

[CONTINUOUS ASSESSMENT – noun. Britain. the evaluation of a pupil’s progress throughout a course of study, as well as or instead of by examination]

Evaluate: 1 assess, appraise. 2 a find or state the number or amount of. b find a numerical expression for.  

ü  आधारभूत प्राविधिक शब्दावली

Assessment: कर निर्धारण, मूल्यांकन

Evaluation: मूल्यांकन

ü  अंग्रेजी नेपाली साझा संक्षिप्त शब्दकोश

Assessment: कर निर्धारण, मूल्य निर्धारण, लेखा-जोखा

Evaluation: मूल्यांकन, परख, लेखा-जोखा

ü  Oxford Dictionary & Thesaurus III

Assessment: ■ 1. appraise, assay (metal), calculate, compute, consider, determine, estimate, evaluate, fix, gauge, judge, reckon, review, colloquial size up, value, weigh up, work out; 2 appraise, evaluate, price, value.     

Evaluation: ■ 1 appraise, assess, estimate, judge, value, colloquial weigh up 2 calculate value of, compute, work out. 

The dictionary meanings of the words ‘assess’ and ‘evaluate’ or ‘assessment’ and ‘evaluation’ are same and being used as synonym while speaking generally. Both the words denote the judgment or opinion about the value or quality of something or somebody as per OXFORD Advanced Learner’s Dictionary. However, one of the meanings of ‘evaluate’ in The Concise Oxford Dictionary is ‘find a numerical expression for’ which means the evaluation is a numerical representation of quality or value of something or somebody. In the same way, one of the meanings of ‘assessment’ stated in OXFORD Advanced Learner’s Dictionary is ‘written and oral exams’ which we normally call as ‘evaluation’.  The dictionaries also have the same meanings – evaluation (valuation), calculation, accounting, appraisal, etc. 

 It is interesting to note here that there is a separate meaning for two-word phrase ‘Continuous Assessment’ under letter ‘C’ in The Concise Oxford Dictionary which means ‘the evaluation of a pupil’s progress throughout a course of study, as well as or instead of by examination’. Now let’s see the phrase ‘instead of by examination’ which clearly denotes ‘without conducting examination’. This means that Continuous Assessment is different than Assessment and Evaluation as per the Dictionary and Continuous Assessment is not as same as Continuous Evaluation while evaluating or assessing pupil’s progress of learning.    As such, the meanings of Assessment and Evaluation differ in the context of teaching-learning and classroom processes. I mean the meanings of these two words would be different when you use these words as an educator.     

My another target was the review of literatures pertaining to these words. Everyone knows that we hardly find the theoretical discourse especially on these terminologies in the books prescribed for B.Ed, M.Ed. and MA (Education) Course. I have small library which has few books on the topic being discussed here. As such, the major chunk of literature/materials used for review in this part of article is web-based. 

To initiate the discussion on Assessment and Evaluation, I would like to quote an excerpt from the Introduction of ‘Source Book on Assessment for Classes I-V’[i]

prepared by the National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT), India,  which I feel, has much relevance in understanding the meanings these two words. The excerpt is like this:   

‘Assessment – For What? – In a primary school, 30 children in Class IV were given a test on Environmental Studies, on water, a chapter in their textbooks. Varying marks were obtained by the children with most scoring 6 out of 10. Two children, Maithali and Raman scored 8 and 3 out of 10, respectively. When the teacher read out the marks, the children laughed at Raman and made fun of him because he had got low marks. After that day, Raman did not want to come to school at all, and it was difficult for his parents to convince him to go to school.    

What do these marks really tell the teacher, parents or others involved in Maithali’s or Raman’s education? Does it tell anything about what and how both children have learnt and what each of them is capable of doing? Does it tell the teacher how to improve the teaching-learning processes for Maithali and Raman based on their needs? Does it tell the two children, Maithali and Raman anything about their own learning so that they can improve further? Do the marks scored by the children provide a useful report or feedback on what either of the two children know their progress or learning to their parents or community members?’ 

   

The excerpt above makes us clear that what the teacher of Environmental Studies did is not a Continuous Assessment as per the meaning given in The Concise Oxford Dictionary. It is also clear that this type of tests/exams in teaching-learning process is redundant and discourages the child or learner. In fact, taking this type of test by a subject teacher to his own students taught by himself sounds irrelevant because no one knows those children better than himself. This sort of activity of teacher also reveals that the teacher has no predefined objectives of teaching that chapter. [Normally, a teacher has two objectives of taking this type of tests or exam of his students – one, to make the children recapitulate (we can say ‘mug-up’ because this type of test/exam do not provide chance for the children to use their learning in their real life situation) what she has taught them in the class and two, how much the students had learnt from her teaching. Earlier objective has the prominence because many of the teachers use these tests/exams as a tool to improve learning among children. Many of the educational workers are even in favour of detention (holding back in the same class) of children if a child cannot perform well in these exams. They have the notion that ‘repetition’ will improve child’s learning.]

Dr. Pritam Singh (Former Professor and Head, Department of Measurement and Evaluation and National Talent Search Unit, NCERT, New Delhi), in his book titled ‘Handbook of Measurement and Evaluation’ writes about Assessment like this ‘It refers to teachers’ estimate of a value against a certain standard. Therefore it is only an estimate made about an attribute or aspect of development as in assessment of co-scholastic aspects in contrast to the scores on an objective test. It is an approximation and can be informal also.’  Regarding Evaluation, he has used the words like ‘assessment’, ‘examination’, ‘appraisal’ and ‘testing’[ii] indicating that both these words (‘assessment’, ‘examination’, ‘appraisal’ and ‘testing’) come within evaluation.     

His views on Assessment is not clear as it should be, however, the mention of ‘certain standard’ indicates that the assessment needs certain objectives/milestones/goals/desired outcomes before conducting it. Dr. Bob Kizlik also opines the same about assessment. He while writing on Assessment mentions ‘…assessment is most usefully connected to some goal or objective for which the assessment is designed. A test or assessment yields information relative to an objective or goal. In that sense, we test or assess to determine whether or not an objective or goal has been obtained.’

The view of Dr. Bob Kizlik on assessment is clearer than Dr. Pritam Singh. His obvious mentions of the connection of assessment with goal or objective has concluded that before conducting assessment the assessor should have related set of goals or objectives which are to be generated after assessment. Dr. Bob Kizlik summing up his article on Measurement, Assessment, and Evaluation in Education writes – ‘…we measure distance, we assess learning, and we evaluate results in terms of some set of criteria.’  This statement of Dr. Bob clears that ‘assessment’ is usually used in assessing learning but ‘evaluation’ is used to deduce the result or label the quality of final product. 

Let’s see another explanation on ‘assessment’ and ‘evaluation’ given by Dr. Marie Baehr (Vice President for Academic Affairs and Dean of the Faculty, Coe College, United States). She, writing on Distinctions between Assessment and Evaluation, explains -    ‘Assessment provides feedback on knowledge, skills, attitudes, and work products for the purpose of elevating future performances and learning outcomes. Evaluation determines the level of quality of a performance or outcome and enables decision-making based on the level of quality demonstrated.’  The version of Dr. Marie also agrees with the explanation of Dr. Bob, however, Dr. Marie has added the purpose of assessment while explaining this term. She further adds some more points to clear the meaning of the word ‘assessment’ -‘Assessment is the term used to look at how the level of quality of a performance or outcome could be improved in the future; it includes strengths that should be sustained as well as high priority areas for improvement.’

There is another interesting excerpt in regard to the meanings of ‘assessment’ and ‘evaluation’ in the official site of ‘The National Academy for Academic Leadership –Leading Today for Tomorrow, New Jersey’, which writes – ‘Assessment is a process of determining "what is." Assessment provides faculty members, administrators, trustees, and others with evidence, numerical or otherwise, from which they can develop useful information about their students, institutions, programs, and courses and also about themselves. This information can help them make effectual decisions about student learning and development, professional effectiveness, and program quality. Evaluation uses information based on the credible evidence generated through assessment to make judgments of relative value: the acceptability of the conditions described through assessment.’

Now let’s go through the difference between Assessment and Evaluation[iii] which are given below in the table:

ASSESSMENT	EVALUATION
Formative: Ongoing to improve learning	Summative: Final to gauge quality
Process-oriented: How learning is going	Product-oriented: What’s been learned
Reflective: Internally defined criteria/goals	Prescriptive: Externally imposed standards
Diagnostic: Identify areas for improvement	Judgmental: Arrive at an overall grade/score
Flexible: Adjust as problems are clarified	Fixed: To reward success, punish failure
Absolute: Strives for ideal outcomes	Comparative: Divide better from worse
Cooperative: Learn from each other	Competitive: Beat each other out

After this much of discussions and reviews, we can at least conclude that there is inconsistency in the use of these two terms and have no distinct meaning as perceived by the sensitive users like me. This discussion also revealed that the statement of Dr. Pritam Singh about ‘assessment’ saying ‘…..  It (assessment) is an approximation and can be informal also’ has little contradiction with the explanations of other academicians as they say ‘assessment’ determine ‘evidence’ rather than ‘approximation’ of information. ‘Assessment’ is the process of determining the shortcomings in the on-going work, thereby conducting improvement activity as determined by assessment so as to ensure the pre-defined quality at the end of the work and ‘evaluation’ is a process of determining the quality of a finished product as per the pre-set criteria. Assessment is done to improve a performance or outcome and Evaluation is to determine the quality of a performance or outcome and to make decisions based on the quality.[iv]        

The difference between CCE and CCA appears so simple but it makes difference at activity level as processes involved in conducting CCE and CCA are totally different. It is not just alteration of ‘E’ (Evaluation) and ‘A’ (Assessment). Hence, it is high time for the educational functionaries like educational administrators, teacher trainers, school heads and teachers to be imperative about the meanings of these two terms – Assessment and Evaluation. These two words are no more synonyms on teaching-learning perspectives. 

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[i] Published in October 2008

[ii] Chapter – Basic Concepts in Educational Evaluation

[iii] Slides ‘The Difference Between Assessment and Evaluation’, H. Stephen Straight, Vice Provost for Undergraduate Education Teaching Assistant Orientation 28 August 2002

[iv] Dr. Marie Baehr

Module for the Training of School Management Committee on Planning Process and Preparation of School Development Plan

Module written by:

Dhan B.Subba, Assistant Director (SSA)

State Project Office, Government of Sikkim

PREFACE

The quality of life depends on the quality of schooling one has had. Therefore it has become our duty that we not only to provide our children free and compulsory education but also ensure that they receive the best possible education that we can provide. This would enable these children to be useful, contributing members of their society and their country.

Over the past several decades, both the public and education professionals have been vocal in their demands for new programs and practices in education. Simultaneously, these advocates have acknowledged that educators must come to an intimate understanding of the process of change in order for implementation to be successful and for the promises of new practices to be realized. During this period, an abundance of improvement processes were introduced to school practitioners in the hope that change would produce results in desired direction.

The School Development Plan is a plan, which provides continuous improvement strategy that will empower the stakeholders to take ownership of their own development.   

It is a guideline and not a set of rules to be followed slavishly.  This plan encourages creativity, collaboration and continuity.  The plan is to be so organized that it will promote an effective progressive and focused school community.

It is the hope that the plan will cater to the needs of everyone within the school community.  The approach taken was holistic in that it embraced activities that will not only prioritize the academics but also the general areas in the school.  These areas are: a) attendance b) staff development c) infrastructure, d) parent education e) school community relations f) students’ self-esteem g) technology and work and h) health and nutrition. 

The aim is to bring positive change not only to the school but also that of the community to enhance students' performance in all domains for building a better nation.

 

Mrs. Mamta Thapa

Addl. Director-cum-SPD (SSA),

Human Resource Dev. Deptt,

Government of Sikkim, Sikkim

AUTHOR’S NOTE

While writing on School Development Plan for the appraisal of Quality Related Interventions in AWP&B 2009-10, the following types of parameters were identified for goal setting:

·       Students’ achievement level

·       Learning difficulties in each subject

·       Teaching learning methods

·       Development and Use of TLMs

·       Active student participation

·       Continuous and comprehensive Assessment

·       Community involvement in quality aspects

·       School environment

·       Teacher and student attendance, & regularity and punctuality

·       Teachers’ performance against ADEPTS[1] indicators

This was the beginning that the state began to think about School Development Plan and identified core parameters for the planning at school level though it has missed the parameter like Minimum Enabling Conditions at school level.

As such, this booklet is the accomplishment of my four years’ dream to write something on school-community relationships. The main credit for it goes to RTE Act and its’ Section 22 which actually provided me the platform to write this module in right time.  Though I know this module may not cover many of the areas envisioned by the Act. On the other hand, there was limited scope of exposure to literatures/programmes related to School Development Plan to reinforce my idea. Thus, this booklet is simply the result of my perceived idea on School Development Plan and my experiences as a planner for the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan in the State for the last 9 years. Additionally, my interactions with students, parents, PRIs, School Management Committees, teachers, school heads, CRC coordinators, etc. during my postings at Block and District level offices also contributed a lot in writing this module.

I should say that I intentionally made this module more like manual so that everyone who reads this booklet would get basic idea of School Development Plan and planning at school level. Further, to train more than twelve thousand members of School Management Committee in one go is really difficult task in the state like ours where there is shortage of good trainers on the subject of educational planning. Further, I have not included any training plan/session plan in this book. It is the liberty of trainer to prepare above as per their requirements.

However, for me this has become an important juncture where I am recollecting my memories and revisiting the moments where I encountered with the people who prompted me to think about school-community relationships in managing a school and increase its efficiency. My gratitude remains due to those great people of my life. 

I would like to express my heartfelt gratitude to my SPD Smt. Mamta Thapa who allocated me the interventions dealing with school-community relationships which eventually insisted me to write this module.

This book would not have been written if I was not been posted to Block Administrative Centres or District Offices where I got the exposures to real school situations. So I would like to express my gratitude to my senior officials for providing me the avenues to interact with School heads, teachers, PRI members, parents, SMC members and students which urged me to contemplate on school-community relationships.

I would like to thank my officers and staff of all levels of offices of Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan, for their supports and helps.

My gratitude also goes to friends who are my source of inspirations always and I know their inspirations will remain with me always.

The support of my family is equally important as this module has been written during government holidays or non-office time.

Lastly, I would be grateful, rather enriched to all the sensible readers who will point out my mistakes in this booklet and give suggestions for its further improvement.

: Dhan B. Subba

Assistant Director (SSA)

Human Resource Dev. Deptt,

Government of Sikkim

10^th October 2011, Chanmari, Gangtok.

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[1] ADEPTS is a Nation-wide programme. In 2007 & 2008, MHRD, Govt. of India and UNICEF conducted various consultation workshops in different parts of the country inviting educational administrators, educationists, college lecturers, teacher trainers and devised indicators for teachers’ and trainers’ performance standards. The full form of ADEPTS is Advancement of Educational performance through Teachers’ Support.

OBJECTIVES

It is already been mentioned in the Author’s Note that this booklet is more like manual than training module. While writing this booklet, the following objectives were kept in mind:

1.          To make School Management Committee familiar with the School Development Plan and different steps to prepare it.

2.          To aware School Management Committee about different categories of information essential for the preparation of school specific School Development Plan.

3.          To educate School Management Committee about the process of collection of information from various sources and its consolidation.

4.          To educate School Management Committee to analyse consolidated information, identification of problems and its prioritization.

5.          To make School Management Committee capable of converting problems into goals/desired outcomes.

6.          To make School Management Committee capable of devising actions/steps in consonance with the goals.

7.          To make School Management Committee capable of conducting follow-up activities to achieve the set goals/desired outcomes.

8.          To educate School Management Committee about the composition and tenure of School Management Committee as per RTE Act.

9.          To aware School Managing Committee about the grants being provided by the government to school.

10.      To educate School Management Committee about the maintenance of accounts and process of utilization of grants.

11.      To educate School Management Committee about the entitlement of school facilities, teachers, classrooms and part time instructorss as per RTE Act.

12.      To sensitise School Management Committee about the process of making school building barrier-free and pedagogically helpful.

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CONTENT

	Preface
	Author’s Note
	Objectives
	Content
1.	Chapter – I: Eleven Questions to Author about SCHOOL                           DEVELOPMENT PLAN
	Question - 1	:	What is School Development Plan and who prepares this?
	Question - 2	:	Who are the members of School Management Committee and what is its tenure?
	Question - 3	:	Why is it necessary to prepare School Development Plan?
	Question - 4	:	What should be the objectives of School Development Plan?
	Question - 5	:	What is School Neighbourhood?
	Question - 6	:	How do we know the area/boundary of school neighbourhood?
	Question - 7	:	How to prepare School Development Plan?
	Question - 8	:	How many Chapters supposed to be there in School Development Plan?
	Question - 9	:	What are these chapters?
	Questions - 10	:	Could you give an example of making budget citing examples actions/Steps as above?
	Questions - 11	:	Do we need to fill the formats?
2.	Chapter – II: Long Term Planning
3.	Chapter – III: Planning, Implementation and Monitoring
4.	Chapter – IV: Various grants to Schools and Accounts keeping
5.	Chapter – V: Entitlement under RTE Act
	A	:	Access
	B	:	Teachers
	C	:	Part Time Instructors
	D	:	Classrooms
6.	Chapter – VI: Planning Tables
	Some Explanations

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Chapter I

In Sikkim, we have two levels of school – (a) Primary Level wherein we teach Class I to Class VIII and (b) Secondary Level wherein Class IX to Class XII are taught. Primary Level is also known as Elementary Level. We will discuss the process of preparation of plan for Primary Level only in this booklet.

Eleven Questions to Author about SCHOOL DEVELOPMENT PLAN

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 19^th 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.

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 1^st 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:

1.    To ensure universal enrolment, retention, Quality and completion of elementary cycle at appropriate age.

2.    To ensure child-friendly, barrier free, safe and attractive school environment for pedagogical processes

3.    To ensure Special Training to Out of School Children of school neighbourhood to put them in the age appropriate class

4.    To ensure physical infrastructure along with all weather school buildings

5.    To ensure higher order learning in children with holistic development

6.    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

Sl. No.	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.

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Chapter II

Long Term Planning

The discussion we did in the above section is for the annual plan only. Let us discuss about Long Term Planning as well. The planning on long term perspectives includes the planning of such areas which require more than one for its achievements. The following areas may be taken as the areas for long term planning:

ü Future expansion of the school in case of increase in the enrolment or up-gradation of school to higher level.

ü Provision of barrier free environment in the school

üEnhancement of achievement level of children, etc.

As an example of ‘Future expansion of the school’, the school has to prepare

school layout map of the school as under:

The above sketch shows the School Campus Layout Map of a primary school of hilly terrain wherein a site for future expansion is exclusively set aside. In the same way, the school may also plan for the wasteland lying in the school campus like construction open amphitheater, children friendly structures, flower garden, campus plantation, etc.  

The sketch prepare above is not the actual School Campus Layout Map. In fact, this type of map is to be prepared by the engineers. The School Campus Layout Map of Assangthang Junior High School, South District, is given in the next as sample.

School Campus Layout Plan of Assangthang Junior High School, South Sikkim

For the construction of new school building in the hilly terrain, the design of the building has to be prepared on the basis of the landscape and nature of soil in the construction site. The provisions of barrier-free elements like ramps, handrails, grab rails, etc. and the BaLA (Building as Learning Aid) elements are to be included in the design itself. The sketch below shows the ramps with handrail which is one of the main components of Barrier-free environment of a school.

The school building should focus the following four areas:

1.    A warm and encouraging atmosphere in the school

The dull looking school buildings and classrooms infrastructure cannot provide a warm and encouraging atmosphere for the children in the school. It is seen in many of the schools of Sikkim that the structures were made randomly without considering the future requirements of land and scope of expansion. This has resulted in the unorganized dispersal of structures in the school campus giving dull and boring looks. As such, a warm and encouraging atmosphere in the school may be ensured by doing following:

a.     The plan of the school building should be as per the construction site which can tune with the landscape and gives beauty

b.    Designing school building in such a way to make it well ventilated, lighted (natural light) and having thermal comfort so that the children may not feel annoyed of coming to school.

c.     Architectural design of the school should be such that the paintings can be done with various colours (not dull and monotonous colours)

d.    Classroom mural/ceiling painting should be painted in different colours in such a way to make them attractive for children and useful for pedagogical purpose

e.     The height of the chalkboards is to be accessible to children

f.      School Layout Plan should provide appropriate site for campus plantation (trees, shrubs, herbs) which can serve both as sheds and beautification of the school. The layout plan should also provide appropriate site for horticulture/agriculture (like weak/landslide prone side in hilly terrain if any which cannot be used for constructing buildings) if school has sufficient land.

2.    Learning through activity, discovery, dialogue and exploration [Increased visibility of active learning]

Learning through activity, discovery, dialogue and exploration may be ensured in a school by introducing BaLA[2] components. The availability of ABL[3] friendly furniture in the classroom, standard classroom space for 40 children in primary classes and 35 children in upper primary classes that can facilitate to conduct activities making at least five groups (8X5 for primary and 7X5 for upper primary), design on the floor, if possible room shapes may be made pentagonal and hexagonal rather than monotonously rectangular, etc. will definitely provide scope for active learning in the classes. If the school area permits and providing multi-purpose hall for the school is impossible, an open amphitheater should be made in the school campus.  

3.    More inclusive classroom participation (visible and continuous reduction in discriminatory classroom practices classroom – identify these, and then work on them)

Providing barrier-free environment in the school is one of the main options to make inclusive classroom participation and enhance inclusive activities in teaching learning process. Here the inclusion also includes the social inclusion which does not have relevance under Civil Works. As such the barrier-free in this will be only the physical barrier. Inclusive classroom participation would be possible by following way:

a.     Taking steps with low heights in the stairs – colour contrasting/slip-resistant

b.    Grab rails on both sides of the stairs

c.     Colour contrasting/slip-resistant ramps with handrails with standard length-height ratio

d.    Be free of sharp or abrasive elements

e.     Be colour-contrasted from the adjacent wall surface

f.      Barrier-free facilities in toilets, urinals and drinking water hydrant with grab bars and standard interior and front area,

g.    The plan of the school building incorporates all the barrier-free components, etc.

4.    Focus on higher order learning with objectives and building of child knowledge, potential & talent.

Including the provision of various designs in school construction plan related to contents of the textbooks on the walls, floors, doors, windows and columns which encourage or prompt knowledge construction among children. The designs are like food chain, food web, eclipses, Political map (state map) of India, Physical map of India, Periodic Table, Chemical Formulae, Mathematics formulae, etc,. These designs are especially for upper primary classes. 

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[2] Building as Learning Aid – School Building has to be made in such a way that the building acts as learning resource for children. Various designs of BaLA are available in the State and District HRDD offices.

[3] Activity Based Learning – learning through activities, not merely sitting on the bench idly and listening teacher’s lecture. 

Chapter III

Planning, Implementation and Monitoring

Planning

School Managing Committee convenes a planning meeting of parents, teachers and panchayats and local people in the month of September and deliberates for the updation of the available school neighbourhood data. If it is the first time that the school is preparing School Development Plan and all the data are to be collected, then this meeting has to form the sub-committees for following twelve purposes:

1.    Household Survey

a.     To conduct Household Survey

b.    To consolidate Household Survey data in Children Population Format, School Going Children Format, Out of School Children Format

c.     To maintain children population records of School Going Children, Special Children and Out of School Children in different registers

2.    School Survey

                i.          To conduct School Survey

              ii.          To consolidate School Survey data in School Format, Enrolment Format and Teacher Format

After consolidating the data of both the survey, School Management Committee convenes another meeting and lists the problems in twelve areas as follows:

      i.          Listing of problems related to enrolment of Out of School Children, 

a.     Age-wise not enrolled children – Normal and Special

b.    Age-wise and grade-wise dropout children – Normal and Special

c.     Age-wise educable Special children

d.    Age-wise non-educable Special Children

    ii.          Listing of problems related to teacher

a.     Shortage of teachers

b.    Untrained teachers

c.     Under oriented teachers

d.    In-effectiveness of teachers

e.     In-effectiveness of HM

f.      Low attendance of teachers and HM

  iii.          Listing of problems related to Students

a.     Low/average attendance of students

b.    Low/average achievement of students

   iv.          Listing of problems related to availability of infrastructure/basic facilities

a.     Shortage of Classrooms

b.    Shortage of Blackboards

c.     Shortage of desk/bench/classroom chair &table

d.    Lack of barrier free environment for special children

e.     Lack of Boundary wall (child safety)

f.      Lack of ground level blackboard in primary classes

g.    Lack of learning friendly designs in school

h.    Lack of teacher toilet

i.      Lack of Boys’ Toilet

j.      Lack of Separate Girls’ Toilet

k.    Lack of drinking water connection

l.      Lack of drinking water hydrant/ platform

m.  Lack of Children’s library almirah

n.    Lack/in-sufficient electricity connection

o.    Shortage of Notice Boards/Display Boards for Common purpose, HM, Teachers, Students, etc.

p.    MDM Kitchen and store

q.    Shortage of room to make staff room

r.      Shortage of room to make HM’s room

s.     Shortage of staff room furniture – chair, table, almirah, etc.

t.      Shortage of HM’s room furniture – chair, table, almirah, etc.

u.    Shortage of room for Laboratory (for upper primary only)

v.    Shortage of room Store

w.   Tiffin Hall, etc.

     v.          Listing of problems related to conditions of available infrastructure

a.     Major/minor repair of roof, walls, columns, floor, etc. of existing school buildings

b.    Major/minor repair of protective/supporting walls for existing school buildings

c.     Major/minor repair of classrooms and its blackboards

d.    Major/minor repair of other rooms

e.     Major/minor repair of school furniture including Notice Boards

f.      Major/minor repair of toilets available in the school

g.    Major/minor repair of drinking water connectivity and water hydrant

h.    Major/minor repair of electricity connection

i.      Major/minor repair of MDM kitchen/Store/tiffin hall,

j.      Major/minor repair of ground level blackboard, etc.

   vi.          Listing of Problems related to teaching materials/equipment

a.     Lack/shortage of age relevant library books for children

b.    Lack/shortage of globe, maps, charts, etc.

c.     Lack/shortage of fixed, embossed, folding models, etc.

d.    Lack/shortage of play cards, flash cards, etc.

e.     Lack/shortage of Mathematics kits, Science kits, etc.

f.      Lack/shortage of instruments like computer, printer, tape recorder, microscope, hand lens, mirrors, etc.

g.    Lack/shortage of ICT instruments like radio, TV, internet, etc.

vii.          Listing of problems related to Physical Health Education (games, sports, physical training and health education)

a.     Lack/shortage of football kits, volleyball kits, cricket kits, badminton kits, hockey kits, etc.

b.    Lack/shortage of table tennis kits

c.     Lack/shortage of chess, ludo, etc.

d.    Lack/shortage of javelin and discuss kits.

[Problems depend on the availability of playing spaces and small playground may be extended if community can provide land]

viii.          Listing of problems related to Art Education [Music, dance, theatre, drawing, painting and craft/work]  

a.     Lack of art education materials like design books, source books, tool guides, etc.

b.    Lack/shortage of musical instruments like madal, damphu, chyabrung,

tungna, harmonium, guitar, dukki-tabela, etc.

c.     Lack of craft labs, craft materials and tools [tools for carving, moulding, chiseling, cutting, chopping, etc.]

   ix.          Listing of problems related to use of various grants received by the schools

a.     Improper use of School grant – not as per prioritized activities

b.    Improper use of Teacher grant – not as per prioritized activities

c.     Improper use of Maintenance grant – not as per prioritized activities

d.    Improper use of Stationary grant – not as per prioritized activities

e.     Improper use of Ancillary grant – not as per prioritized activities

f.      Improper use of other fund received as personal donations/ prizes – not as per prioritized activities, etc.

     x.          Listing of problems related to community and civil society participations

a.     People grazes their cattle in school campus

b.    People defecates in school area

c.     People destroys water linkage to school

d.    People destroys school properties during off school time

e.     People do not visits and inquire classes/school during school days

f.      People do not sit in the class to see how teacher teaches

g.    People do not contribute to make school more effective in attracting children, etc.

   xi.          Listing of school inspection related problems

a.     School Management Committee do not visit school once in 15 days

b.    Cluster Coordinator do not visit school even once in a month

c.     Block Coordinator do not visit school even once in 3 months

d.    Sub-Divisional Deputy Director do not visit school even once in 1 year

e.     District/DIET officials do not visit school even once in 2 year

f.      State/SCERT officials do not visit school even once in 3 year

 xii.          Listing of problems related to exigencies

a.     Sanitary problems for girls

b.    Uncertain injuries

c.     Landslide

d.    Earthquake

e.     Fire hazards

f.      Late arrival of textbooks

g.    Uncertain transfer of the teachers or closing of school, etc.

School Management Committee segregates the problems which are to be solved in the plan period and prioritizes them as per the importance of the problem in the same meeting. Accordingly the meeting converts the problems into desired outcomes/goals and devises the actions/steps to achieve the same (See the answer of Question 5 above). After finalization of the plan for the year, the committee submits it to their respective Cluster Resource Centre.

Implementation

This step includes all the planned activities conducted to achieve the desired outcomes/goals. As such, School Management Committee actually starts working as per the devised actions/steps to solve the prioritized problems included in the plan.  School Management Committee during its meeting constitutes sub-committees to implement various planned activities with clear instructions.

Monitoring and Review Meetings

School Management Committee convenes periodical meetings sub-committees to review the progress of the implemented activities. Sometimes the committee needs to devise alternative actions/steps if they feel that the previous strategies may not suffice to achieve the targeted goals. The committee also needs to analyze the planned areas which are lagging behind and reconsider the strategies to speed up the process.

School Management Committee should meet once in a month and there should be quarterly review meeting with sub-committees wherein the sub-committees will submit their quarterly progress report. School Management Committee also has to conduct parent-teacher meeting two times every year to apprise them the progress achieved against the plan targets for both physical and financial achievements. This meeting should be after Summative Assessment – I and II so that the meetings can also discuss about the achievements of the children in the school. In every meeting, School Management Committee has to maintain records the progress in every meeting in the minutes register.

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Chapter IV

Various Grants and Accounts keeping

The government provides various annual grants to schools on the basis of the levels and categories. These grants are school grant, maintenance grant, teacher grant Stationary and ancillary grants.  The rates of different grants are as under:

Sl. No.	Types of Grants		Particular		Amount
1.	School Grant	-	For Primary Level	:	Rs. 5000/- per school
		-	For Upper Primary Level	:	Rs.7000/- per school
2.	Maintenance Grant	-	For schools with up to 3 rooms	:	Rs. 7500/- per school
		-	For schools with more than 3 rooms	:	Rs. 10000/- per school
3.	Teacher Grant	-	For all govt./aided schools	:	Rs. 500/- per teacher
4.	Stationary Grant	-	For Primary schools	:	Rs. 1000/- per school
		-	For Jr. High Schools	:	Rs. 2500/- per school
		-	For Secondary Schools	:	Rs. 5000/- per school
		-	For Sr. Sec. Schools	:	Rs. 7500/- per school
5.	Ancillary Grant	-	For the children of Classes I to V	:	Rs. 37/- per child
		-	For the children of Classes VI to VIII	:	Rs. 65/- per child
6.	Donations/ Cash prizes	-	This is the money received by the school from Ministers, MLAs, MPs, PRIs, govt. officials, community as personal donations and the cash prizes for school’s/students’ performances

Note: The rate given above under Serial number 1 to 5 is the present rate of the department.

School Grant: This grant is given on the basis of the level i.e. Primary Level and Upper Primary Level. As given above `5000/- Primary Level and `7000/- for upper primary level. So the school having both the levels will get `12000/-. The School Grant is meant for the replacement of timeworn materials like file-board cover, registers, etc. Since the above materials may not be replace every year and Stationary Grant is also there to supplement the requirements, the grant may be used for the construction of almirah for children’s library, purchasing petty laboratory consumables for teaching science up to upper primary levels.

Maintenance Grant: Maintenance Grant is given on the basis of the rooms available in the school. It is anticipated that the schools having more rooms need more fund for repair. This grant is meant for minor repairs like repairing of window panes, desk, benches, chairs, tables, blackboards, almirah, etc. Since this grant also an annual grant for the school, the fund allocated under this may be used for the development of child-friendly or learning-friendly environment in the school campus if repair works is less in the school.

Teacher Grant: Teacher Grant is given on per teacher basis and the number of teachers available in the school on the basis of the entitlement as per RTE Act. This grant is meant for the preparation of low cost Teaching Learning Materials from the locally available materials. This grant can also be used for buying chart papers, sketch pen, markers, etc. to conduct stimulating teaching learning in the classroom.

Stationary Grant: Stationary Grant is given on the basis of the category of schools, not on the basis of the levels available in the schools like school grant. School category means the primary school, junior high school, secondary school and senior secondary school. As mention in the table above, it is given a lump-sum amount on the basis of school category. This grant is especially meant for the purchase of office stationaries and other consumables.

Ancillary Grant: Ancillary Grant is given to school on the basis of the level-wise number of children available in the school in previous year. This grant is for the purchase of various materials for the assessment of students’ achievements like papers, pencils, pen, ink, or the materials required for conducting such assessment activities.

Donations/ Cash Prizes: This is the money received by the school from Ministers, MLAs, MPs, PRIs, govt. officials, community as personal donations and the cash prizes for school’s/students’ performances [School cannot impose any fees to children]. Mostly it is found that the schools hardly keep the accounts of the money received by the schools as donations and prizes. However, the money received by the school, whatever may be the source, is public money. Therefore, the school has to maintain the accounts of the money received by the school as donations and cash prizes. The money received from these sources may be used for educational excursions of students; excursions of teachers to the schools which have excelled innovatively in school management or pedagogical processes, for the procurement of musical instruments/ costumes, tape recorder, radio, etc.

Accounts keeping: Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan emphasizes transparent accounts keeping at every management level. The accounts of every grant is be maintained in separate register and keep in a file along with respective vouchers and cash memos. Therefore, there should be six registers and six board covers for accounts keeping of above mentioned grants.

The School Management Committee has to maintain transparency in keeping the accounts. The details of receipt and expenditure are to be placed in quarterly meetings of School Management Committee and in the parent meetings. A Display Board showing monthly receipt and expenditure is to be fixed in the wall of the school verandah in such place where it can be easily visible to common public. The sample DISPLAY BOARD is given below.

MONTHLY FUND UTILIZATION

Month: October

Sl. No.	Fund received as	Amount	Expenditure this month	Expenditure till last month	Total till this month	Balance
1.	School Grant	`5000/-	`750/-	`2300/-	`3050/-	`1950/-
2.	Maintenance Grant	`7500/-	0	`4500/-	`4500/-	`3000/-
3.	Teacher Grant	`2500/-	`1500/-	`200/-	`1700/-	`800/-
4.	Stationary Grant	`1000/-	0	`500	`500	`500/-
5.	Ancillary Grant	`3700/-	`500/-	`2000	`2500/-	`1200/-
6.	Fund received from other source	-	-	-	-	-
	Total	`19700/-	`2750	`9500/-	`12250/-	`7450

Note: The item indicated under serial number 6 is donations and cash prizes received by the schools

As mentioned above the accounts keeping in different registers for different grants is mandatory. These registers are to be placed when concerned officials or Audit party visit the schools along with the cash memos and vouchers. A sample entry of the accounts register pertaining to School Grant is given below:

ENTRY REGISTER FOR SCHOOL GRANT

RECEIPT					EXPENDITURE
Date	Particulars	Amount	Total		Date	Particulars	Amount	Total
	Brought forward	`200/-	-		-	-	-	-
12/4/2011	Received  School Grant vide cheque number …… or cash	`5000/-	`5200/-		3/5/2011	Purchased 5 registers and 5 file board covers (Cash memo enclosed in c.p. no. 3)	`350/-	-
					7/7/2011	Purchased ply wood to make almirah to set children’s library (Cash memo enclosed in c.p. no. 4)	`1500/-	`1850/
					10/7/2011	Purchased nail, latches, etc. (Cash memo enclosed in c.p. no. 5)	`225/-	`2075/-
					21/7/2011	Paid to carpenter (Receipt enclosed in c.p. no. 3)	`900/-	`2975/-
						So on….

Note: School Management Committee meets every time when it receives any fund/grant to discuss the activities to be taken up from among the prioritized list using that money. It also reviews the progress of the works which are already taken up by it.

In the same way, School Management Committee has to prepare registers for Maintenance Grant, Teacher Grant, Stationary and Ancillary Grants. Another important thing that School Managing Committee must not forget is the submission of Utilization Certificate at the end of every Financial Year i.e. end March every year. The format for the submission of Utilization Certificate is as under: 

SCHOOL MANAGEMENT COMMITTEE

GOVERNMENT PRIMARY SCHOOL

AMALAY

Ref. No. _______________                                              Date: ________

UTILIZATION CERTIFICATE OF SCHOOL GRANT

This is certify that the amount to the tune of ` 5000.00 (Five Thousand) received by this School on account of School Grant for the financial year 2011 is fully utilized.

Sign of Secretary (SMC)                                          Sign of Chairman (SMC)

Seal                                                                          Seal

Note: The SMC Secretary is the Ex-officio Member Convenor i.e. School Head

Very often, it is heard that the School Management Committee is asked to submit the cash memos and vouchers along with the utilization certificates by CRCs, BRCs and DPOs. This will creates problem for School Management Committees when School Audit visits their schools. Therefore, the committee submit simple certificate as above, however, they have to show accounts and satisfy the school audit and inspecting officers from various levels during their visits to the schools.

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Chapter – V

Entitlements under RTE Act

RTE Act has specified entitlements related to access, number of teachers, part time instructors and classrooms. The discussions on these entitlements are given in the bullets below for the information to the School Management Committee. The main intend of including this chapter in this module is to make School Management Committee aware about the norms of entitlements of basic needs of opening a school or providing basic facilities in a school.

A.   Entitlement related to access to school for all children of 6 to 14 age group

Any habitation which falls beyond the school neighbourhood areas as per the neighbourhood norms laid down by the state government, the children of that habitation, if they are out of school, are entitle for access to schooling. The state has the provision of opening of Lower Primary School which is the school with three classes (I to III) in the habitations having 20 to 30 children and primary school with classes I to V above 30 children. The strategies for providing access to schooling for the children of such habitations having less than 20 children are yet not devised or notified in the state. However, we may take following norms for providing access to schooling in this module for the children of such habitation of the state:

No. of children	Adoptable Strategies	Remarks
01 to 09	Enrolment of children providing residential facility in the schools already having hostels	We may request MHRD for providing per child hostel fee instead of residential school
10 to 19	Opening of EGS Centres if the habitation may be eligible for lower primary school after two years (after projecting children population of 6 to 11 years considering birth rate and population inflow)	If the habitation does not fulfill the criteria of opening of lower primary school within 2 years we may go for residential facility

B.   Entitlement related to teachers

The tables given below give the entitlement of teachers in primary and upper primary levels of government schools as per RTE Act 2009. Since entitlement of teachers on enrolment basis as per last Notification [Notification No. 1022/Dir/HRDD/SE, dated 2^nd February 2010.] of the Human Resource Development Department, Government of Sikkim, is higher than the RTE Entitlement, the School Management Committee may confuse of total number of teachers to be there in a school. However, the School Management Committee has to follow the RTE entitlement while demanding teachers for the school.

For Primary Level (Classes I to V)

Sl. No.	Students’ Enrolment number	Entitlement of full time Teachers	Entitlement of Head Teacher	Entitlement of Part Time Teacher
1	01 to 60	02	Not Entitled	Not Entitled
2	61 to 90	03	Not Entitled	Not Entitled
3	91 to 120	04	Not Entitled	Not Entitled
4	121 to 150	05	Not Entitled	Not Entitled
5	150 to 200	05	01	Not Entitled
6	200 and above	PTR @ 40:1	01	Not Entitled

Note: As per the formats supplied by Ed.CIL for the preparation Supplementary Plan 2010-11

The serial number ‘1’ shows student enrolment number as 01 to 60. This does not mean that a school can be opened or two teachers can be appointed for a child where that child only is the students for a complete session of that school. The indication of 01 to 60 is ‘Up to 60 children’. The PTR given in the 6^th row in the table above is the rate of students per teacher. This means that if there is more than 200 students in a primary school or primary level in Junior High School, Secondary or Senior Secondary Schools then one each teacher will be added for every 40 students. The primary schools opened under SSA, has been given two primary teachers as the schools have less than 60 students. If the students’ enrolment is more than 60 in this session, the schools may demand teachers as per the teacher entitlement of RTE Act.

For Upper Primary Level (Classes VI to VIII)

Sl.  No.	Enrolment number	Entitlement of full time Teachers	Entitlement of Head Teacher	Entitlement of Part Time Teacher
1	2	3	4	5
1	01 to 100	03	Not Entitled	Not Entitled
2	100 to 150	03	01	03
3	150 and above	PTR @ 35:1	01	03

Note: As per the formats supplied by Ed.CIL for the preparation Supplementary Plan 2010-11

The descriptions for Row number 1 for number of students and Row number 3 for PTR are same as in primary level. However, regarding the number of teachers in the table above may need explanations. The entitlement of 03 teachers mentioned under column 3 are the teachers for three subjects i.e. one Social Studies Teacher, one Science Teacher and one Language Teacher. In this case as well, the state has the provision of providing three Social Studies Teachers, one Mathematics Teacher and one Science Teacher (including Head Teacher) for upper primary level. The language classes in upper primary level are normally dealt by primary teachers.  However, the primary schools upgraded under SSA are following the norms of RTE Act for the placement teachers.  

C.   Entitlement of part Time Instructors

The upper primary schools having enrolment (enrolment in Classes VI to VIII) more than one hundred are entitle for three Part Time Instructors viz. one work education instructor, one art education instructor and one physical education instructor. The art education instructor normally works on both performing and visual arts. The performing arts like vocal and instrumental music, folk and classical dances, rhythmic movements, drama, stage puppetry, street plays, mime, mask play, etc. and visual arts like painting, drawing, paper cutting and pasting, clay and paper modeling, puppetry, sculpturing, various indigenous crafts etc. The  work education instructor instructs the children on work education like cutting vegetables, cooking, cleaning classrooms, decorating rooms, cleaning utensils, gardening, organizing class quiz, washing clothes, etc. This instructor inculcates the ethics of dignity of labour. The physical education instructor is not like PT Teacher. This instructor has to look after all the areas of children’s physical development (sports, PT, etc.) and health education (diseases, HIV Aids, adolescence counseling, population education, etc.).  

D.   Entitlement related to Classrooms

The entitlement of classrooms for the school is on the basis of number of classes or number of teachers (as per RTE entitlement) in the school whichever may be the less. This means that if in a primary school there are five classes and the enrolment is 100. The entitlement of teachers for 100 students is 03 which is less than the number of classes. Hence, the school is entitled for 3 classrooms only.

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Chapter – VI

Planning Tables

Household Survey Format and tables for consolidation are main tools for the preparation of School Development Plan. There are altogether 47 (forty seven) formats of seven categories which given in the table below:

Sl. No.	Particulars	Tables	Total number of tables
1	Children Population Format	I(a), I(b), I(c), I(d), I(e), I(f),  I(g)	07
2	School Going Children Format	II(a), II(b), II(c), II(d), II(e), II(f), II(g)	07
3	Out of School Children Format	III(a),  III(b),  III(c),  III(d),  III(e),  III(f),  III(g)	07
4	Student Information Format	IV(a),  IV(b),  IV(c),  IV(d),  IV(e),  IV(f),  IV(g),  IV(h), IV(i), IV(j), IV(k)	11
5	Teacher Format	V(a),  V(b),  V(c),  V(d),  V(e),  V(f)	06
6	School Format	VI(a),  VI(b),  VI(c),  VI(d),  VI(e),  VI(f),  VI(g),  VI(h),  VI(i)	09
	TOTAL		47

It is expected that the detailing of the formats mentioned above will help the readers to be acquainted with them. As such, the detailing is done as under:

1. Children Population Format: There are seven tables under this category. The tables are related to the data of school neighbourhood area. The table numbers and captions of the tables are given below: 

                i.          TABLE – I(a): Household Survey

              ii.          TABLE – I(b): Age-wise and Community-wise Consolidation of total Children Population

            iii.          TABLE – I(c): Age-wise and Community-wise Consolidation of BPL Children Population

            iv.          TABLE – I(d): Age-wise and Community-wise Consolidation of APL Children Population

              v.      TABLE – I(e): Age-wise and Community-wise Consolidation of Children Population with BPL/APL Card 

            vi.          TABLE – I(f): Disability-wise and Age-wise Consolidation of Disable Children

          vii.          TABLE – I(g): Record of Disable Children Population

2.    School Going Children Format: The tables under this category are also the consolidation of the data collected by using FORMAT – I(a): Household Survey Format. There are seven tables in this category also and pertains the data of school neighbourhood.  The table numbers and captions of the tables are given below:

                i.          TABLE – II(a): Age-wise and Community-wise School going children

              ii.          TABLE – II(b): Age-wise and Grade-wise School going children in Primary

            iii.          TABLE – II(c): Age-wise and Grade-wise School going children in Upper Primary

            iv.          TABLE – II(d): Age-wise and Community-wise School going Disable children

              v.          TABLE – II(e): Age-wise and Grade-wise School going Disable children in Primary

            vi.          TABLE – II(f): Age-wise and Grade-wise School going Disable  children in Upper Primary

          vii.          TABLE – II(g): Record of School going children

3.    Out of School Children Format: This category of format also contains seven different tables. As in serial number (2), the tables of this category are also for the consolidation of data collected from school neighbourhood through FORMAT – I(a): Household Survey Format. The table numbers and captions of the tables are given below:

                i.          TABLE – III(a): Age-wise and Community-wise not enrolled children

              ii.          TABLE – III(b): Age-wise and Community-wise not enrolled disable children

            iii.          TABLE – III(c): Age-wise and Community-wise dropout children

            iv.          TABLE – III(d): Age-wise and Grade-wise dropout children in Primary

              v.          TABLE – III(e): Age-wise and Grade-wise Dropout Children in Upper Primary

            vi.          TABLE – III(f): Record of Not enrolled Children

          vii.          TABLE – III(g): Record of Dropout Children

4.    Student Information Format: This category has the largest numbers of tables i.e. eleven tables. The tables are related to the children enrolled in the particular school for which the plan is being prepared. These tables do not cover the data of school neighbourhood. The table numbers and captions of the tables are given below:

                i.          TABLE – IV(a): Grade-wise and Community-wise Gross Enrolment of this School

              ii.          TABLE – IV(b): Enrolment of BPL Children

            iii.          TABLE – IV(c): Enrolment of APL Children

            iv.          TABLE – IV(d): Enrolment of Children without any Card (APL/BPL)

              v.          TABLE – IV(e): Disable Children attending this school

            vi.          TABLE – IV(f): Age-wise, Grade-wise and Community-wise Net Enrolment of this school

          vii.          TABLE – IV(g): Grade-wise and Community-wise average attendance of the students in previous session

        viii.          TABLE – IV(h): Consolidated Performance of Students at the end of the previous session

            ix.          TABLE – IV(i): Grade-wise and Gender-wise number of children securing ‘E’ Grade in last academic session

              x.          TABLE – IV(j): Incentives given to the children of primary classes in last session

            xi.          TABLE – IV(k): Incentives given to the children of upper primary classes in last session

5.    Teacher Format: There are six tables under this format and the format relates to the teachers and head teachers of the school for which the plan is being prepared. The table numbers and captions of the tables are given below:

                i.          TABLE – V(a): General Information about Teachers

              ii.          TABLE – V(b): Record of different trainings attended by teachers

            iii.          TABLE –V(c): Assessment of Teachers’ Effectiveness for last session

            iv.          TABLE – V(d): General Perceptions on Teachers’ Effectiveness

              v.          TABLE – V(e): Effectiveness of Head Teacher

            vi.          TABLE – V(f): Individual average attendance of Teachers including Head Teacher

6.    School Format: This format contains nine tables and all the tables are for the collection of various information of the school for which the plan is being prepared.  The table numbers and captions of the tables are given below:

                i.          TABLE – VI(a): General Information about School

              ii.          TABLE – VI(b): Conditions of available infrastructure in the School-I

            iii.          TABLE – VI(c): Conditions of available infrastructure in the School-II

            iv.          TABLE – VI(d): Conditions of available infrastructure in the School-III

              v.          TABLE – VI(e): Teaching Learning Materials/Equipment

            vi.          TABLE – VI(f): Games and Sports Materials

          vii.          TABLE – VI(g): Status of Children’s Library

        viii.          TABLE – VI(h): Status of Art and Musical Instruments

            ix.          TABLE – VI(i): Status of number of School Inspections conducted last year

The sample formats of all categories are given in the next pages.