Eleven Questions on the process of Preparation of School Development Plan with reference to Sikkim

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. More importantly, there should be separate management committee for elementary level as per the composition pattern of RTE Act if the school is a composite school.  

Question – 3: Why is it necessary to prepare School Development Plan?

Answer: Sub-section 1 & 2 of Section 22 of RTE Act, 2009 which came into force on 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:

• To ensure universal enrolment, retention, Quality and completion of elementary cycle at appropriate age.
• To ensure child-friendly, barrier free, safe and attractive school environment for pedagogical processes..
• To ensure Special Training to Out of School Children of school neighbourhood to put them in the age appropriate class.
•  To ensure physical infrastructure along with all weather school buildings. 
• To ensure higher order learning in children with holistic development. 
• To ensure community and civil society partnership in all developmental activities of the school

Question – 5: What is School Neighbourhood?

Answer: School Neighbourhood is nothing but the service area of a school which is to be in the distance of comfortable and safe walking distance for a child from his house to school considering all natural barriers. This is not the imaginary aerial walking distance. The ‘comfortable and safe walking distance’ for the children attending primary school is 1 kilometer and for upper primary 3 kilometer. The following sketch is school neighbourhood of ‘X’ Primary school.

Question – 6: How do we know the area/boundary of school neighbourhood?

Answer: Earmarking of school neighbourhood is very important and falls under the mandates of RTE Act. It should be done by the BRC Coordinators and BAC Level Assistant Directors in the supervision of the Joint Director, District HRRDD Office. Since we don’t have problem of boundary of jurisdiction of BRCs, we have to go for earmarking the boundary of jurisdiction of Cluster Resource Centre taking landmark like river, land ridges, trees, boulder, road, etc.  After that the boundaries of the schools falling under that cluster are to be earmarked on the basis of accessibility of individual school for the children (i.e. 1 km walking distance from household to school in case of primary and 3 km in case of Upper primary). The diagram below shows an example of school neighbourhood area:

The dotted line shows school neighbourhood area of Dugalakha JHS.

Sometimes it happens that some households may remain outside school neighbourhood on 1 km or 3 km walking distance norms as mentioned above and there is no other school in surrounding of those households which is nearer than this school. The children of 6 to 14 year age group of such households should be recorded separately and if the number of such children is 10 or more than that, an alternative school (an EGS Centre) can be opened in such place.

Question – 7: How to prepare School Development Plan?

Answer: Preparation of School Development Plan involves following three major steps (A, B & C):

A.   Status Assessment – Diagnostic Activities and listing of Problems

Firstly, the School Managing Committee conducts household survey of the school neighbourhood to record the status of age-wise children population in the age group of 5 to 14 years, listing of Out of school Children within the population of 6 to 14 years in age-wise and academic level-wise basis (updation of Village Education Register if available in the school). Prepare VER if not available in the school. (Every have to maintain Village Education Register wherein record of children of every household is recorded)

Secondly, School Managing Committee conducts institutional survey of the school and record all the information related to infrastructure and infrastructure requiring repairs, Teaching learning Equipment, children achievements, students’ enrolment, teacher availability, attendance status of children and teachers.

Thirdly, assessment of the available status of school in respect of all aspects collected as above and identification of problems related to all assessed aspects. Suppose while doing assessment, it is found that the school has 100 students in primary classes and 2 teachers. This shows that there is the issue of teacher shortage. In the same way, 50% children acquired ‘E’ grade in last examination. This shows that the classroom teaching or skill development activities in school are poor. It has two problems (i) Shortage of teachers and (ii) Teachers are not skilled with better pedagogical practices. Accordingly, the list of problems identified may be like this:

a.     School has common toilet but there is no separate toilet for girls.

b.    20% children remain absent in the school per day.

c.     Shortage of two teachers

d.    50% children scored ‘E’ grade

e.     10 children out of 120 children in the age group of 6 to 14 years are out of school, etc. 

B.   Prioritization of Problems

Firstly, the problems identified during diagnostic activities are to be prioritized on the basis of its gravity. For example (as per above example):

a.     Shortage of two teachers

b.    In average 20% children remain absent in the school per day

c.     10 (ten) children in the age group of 6 to 14 years are out of school

d.    50% children scored ‘E’ grade

e.     School has common toilet but there is no separate toilet for girls, etc.

Secondly, segregation of problems in terms of its solution level like SMC cannot afford to construct new classroom so its proposal should be forwarded to Cluster Resource Centre and improvement students’ attendance can be solved at school level. 

Now, we have to convert the problems/problems into desired outcomes/goals which are to be achieved at the end of the year as in the following table:

Sl. No.	Problems/Problems	Desired Outcomes/Goals	Solution level
1	Shortage of two teachers	To make full set of teachers in the school	Place demand in higher level
2	In average 20% children remain absent in school per day	To ensure 100% attendance of the children in the school	SMC level
3	10 (ten) children in the age group of 6 to 14 years are out of school	Enrolment of 10 out of school children in the school	SMC level
4	25% children scored ‘E’ grade in last assessment	To reduce the percentage children scoring ‘E’ from 25% to ‘0’%	SMC level
5	School has common toilet but there is no separate toilet for girls	To provide separate girls toilet to girl children	Place demand in higher level

C.  Devising Actions/Steps to achieve Desired outcomes/Goals and Cost.

The detailing of the problems and converting it into goals, automatically indicates the general idea of achieving the set goals. But every goal has series of relevant action points which lead to its achievement. Many of the bigger plans fail because of ignoring this step. So this step has been considered significant while preparing a plan.

Example:

To solve the issue of shortage of teachers in the school, the SMC may represent Cluster Office/Block Office/District Office. As such the Actions can be –

First step: Representation by School Management Committee to Cluster Resource Coordinator to demand teachers, if not solved

Second Step: School Management Committee conducts a meeting and engage volunteer teacher from among the educated unemployed youths of the village till the teachers join school,

Third Step: They make representation to Block Resource Coordinator to demand teachers, if not solved,

Fourth Step: They make representation to District Office to demand teachers and so on.

          But it is important to decide by the School Management Committee that how long SMC waits in one step for fulfilment of its demands. The fixing duration/timeline should be on the basis of the seriousness of demands. School management Committee have to follow the timeline strictly. It may also add more steps above, upto Fourth, fifth steps.

Some more examples of devising steps

Sl. No	Desired Outcomes/Goals	Actions/Steps to achieve the targeted goals	Remarks
1	To make full set of teachers in the school	Step-1. Representation to Cluster Office/Block Office/District Office to demand Teachers Step-2. Mobilize panchayats, community, NGO and local youths to contribute for the placement of temporary volunteer teachers till regular teachers join school. (and so on)	Add more steps to mobilize community to work for schools and talk for school. Monitor continuously and continue the follow-ups as per the demand of the situation but never forget the goal that has to be achieved at the end of the year.
2	To ensure 100% attendance of the children in the school	Step-1: Reconsider the reasons of absence of children as per the findings of the survey conducted Step-2:  (for example, if your finding is ‘children think school is not interesting’) Conduct a meeting of School Management Committee and invite an expert of school environment management and a pedagogue. Place your problem and ask them to react, then make further plan to ahead or you may invite an educational planner along with them who will suggest further planning. Step-3: Constitute an Eminent Mother Group to monitor children’s attendance (and so on)	Mobilize mothers of the children, panchayats and local NGOs to work on it. The SMC members who often wander village due to his occupation may also be of great use to track children’s absenteeism. Discuss the points like a.   How to make school environment welcoming to children? b.   What type of teaching learning processes can attract children to school? Etc. (Blindly forcing them to come to school may lead to any mishaps – be sensitive towards children. Explore what they want.)
3	Enrolment of 10 out of school children in the school	Step-1: Visit the house of the out of the school children and convince/ motivate parents to enroll them in the school. (Conduct motivation camps) Step-2: Bring them to school and enroll in age appropriate class; Step-3: Then admit them in the nearest Special Training Centre. Step-4: Track them in the Special Training Centre also and bring them to school after above centre provides desired certificate. (and so on)	Most of the out of school children are the Children with Special Needs (special children) and their parents do not want to expose their children in the society and many of them feel ashamed to let other know his/her child is special. If the problem is severe, approach Cluster resource Coordinator/ Block Resource Coordinator or SSA office and request for the conduct of mobilization/ motivation camps. SSA can conduct such programme in your village if you have genuine problem.   (If not, explore more)
4	To reduce the percentage of children scoring ‘E’ from 25% to ‘0’%	Step-1: Reconsider the reasons of poor performance of children as per the findings of the survey conducted Step-2: (Reasons may be more. If reason is the children do not get time to study at home, then). Make “Children’s Study Time at Home” the main agenda for every parent-teacher meeting. Step-3: Start tracking children and reasons of poor performance Step-4: Compile the tracking report and plan further (and so on)	Suggest parents the simple way to support children at home like -        let them go through their school bag before brunch in the morning and at night, -        let them be free of family stress and sound sleep at night, -        let them feel secure/safe -        express love and encourage to be learned (Don’t be negative but sometimes tuition going children only do better, if so, conduct authentic survey on it and report higher authority of the HRD Department)
5	To provide separate girls toilet to girl children	Step-1: Place demand to Cluster Resource Coordinators, Block Resource Coordinators, District Office, State office, Block Development Officer, Gram Panchayat, etc. Step-2: Report Cluster Resource Coordinator if school got said toilet from BDO office and in the same way report BDO office if school got toilet from SSA. Don’t take facility from both sides. (and so on)	Grown up girl children face problem due to lack of girls’ toilet in the school. Because of this, many girl children remain absent during their monthly periods. School may keep sanitary pads in girls’ toilet for their emergency use and a lady teacher may be made in-charge of that.  The schools are being provided Toilets and drinking water under Total Sanitation Campaign (TSC) from BDO office. SSA also provides toilet facilities for schools. School Management Committee may request both the sources.

Lastly, all the actions and steps are to be converted into estimated cost. However, it is to note here that every action should be cost effective.

Question – 8: How many Chapters supposed to be there in School Development Plan?

Answer: Broadly there would be Five Chapters in School Development Plan:

1.    Chapter – One : General Information about School e.g. name of school, year of establishment, location of the school, distance from cluster, block office, District office, area of school neighbourhood, number of households, total population, children population in school neighbourhood, literacy of the people residing in school neighbourhood, etc.

2.    Chapter – Two : Present Status of the school and school neighbourhood e.g. number of teachers available in the school, student enrolment, number of building blocks, toilets, separate girls’ toilet, drinking water connection, electricity connection, playground, number of classrooms available, condition of classrooms and other rooms, how much parents are involved in school activities by school, regularity and punctuality of teachers’ and students’, availability of teaching learning materials/equipment, games materials, number of out of school children, students’ performance, etc.

3.    Chapter – Three : Analysis of Progress achieved in last year’s plan targets OR progress achieved as per the fund invested in the school, (grants received and utilized). This chapter also includes the list of activities conducted last year and the activity-wise expenditure incurred in conducting activities. List of assets created also need to be included here.

4.    Chapter – Four : Identification of problems according to the present status of school given in “Chapter – Two”, listing of these problems identified, its prioritization and Devising action/steps for solution during this plan period. Chapter – Three may also indicates the problems while analyzing the progress achieved.

5.    Chapter – Five : Estimation of cost of the Plan. The estimation and listing of activity-wise cost should be done on the basis of the list of activities prepared in Chapter – Four. Some of the activities can be done without investing money like improvement of teacher attendance, bringing out of school children in the school, etc. and the activities like household survey, construction of toilets, additional rooms, etc. require fund. The cost estimation should be done accordingly.

Question – 9: What are these Chapters?

Answer: The Chapters would be:

1.    School Neighbourhood profile

2.    Present Status of School

3.    Achievements in Last Year’s Plan

4.    Problems Identified and devised actions for solution

5.    Budget

Question – 10: Could you give an example of making budget citing examples actions/Steps as above?

Answer: Preparing budget is very simple if the chapters included contain genuine information. The sample budget is prepared on the basis of the examples cited above. The financial is given in rupees.

Sample Budget for Primary School

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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A Brief History of formal Education of South Sikkim District with special reference to involvement of Community and PRIs

Available literature says that the system of formal education started in Sikkim as Monastic education which was based on myths and mystics of Buddhist Lamaism. This was the education imparted in the monasteries to the Buddhist children for monkhood. There is no any evidence of formal system of education in the State other than Monastic Education.  

History

The Educational History of South Sikkim District goes back to 2nd half of the Nineteenth Century. The formal education started in the district when Christian Missions started schools in the district. English, Finis and Scottish Missions had very significant contributions towards the educational beginnings of the district.  Vok, Sadam, Namthang, Temi, etc. are some of the lucky villages of district where these missions worked for education before the kingdom’s regime thought for the formal education of general children.

The record of the school establishment of the district shows that Nain Tshering Lepcha (Wak) Government Secondary School is the oldest government school of the district, which is established during the regime of the Chogyal Thotub Namgyal in the year 1881A.D. However, Shri Prem Thulung, a retired Joint Director of Education Department writes in his book ‘Sikkimma Shikshako Vikash (Sangchhipta Parichaya)’ published in the year 1998 ‘…the senior citizens of the locality remember that Vok School is established in 1890 A.D. by an Englishman, named Makerland.’

The second oldest school of district is Sadam Government Senior Secondary School. It is established in the year 1887 A.D. As per Shri Thulung, this school is first established by Scottish Mission in 1886. The records show that there were only two schools viz.  Wak and Sadam in the district till the end of 19^th century. Sumbuk Government Secondary School is the next school that is established in the year 1923 A.D. after Wak and Sadam School.

Slowly and gradually, the education began to flourish when it crossed the threshold of nineteenth century. The social workers and general public who fall in the category of little bit well informed group mobilized the people to establish schools. In this way, the community schools began to emerge in the district; which were popularly known as “Committee Schools”. But the progress was quite slow as the conditions of the people were not good and the prevailing situation of the kingdom was also not encouraging. However, the Maharaja of Sikkim seemed supportive towards education. The book ‘Educational Administration in Sikkim’ written by Baldev Mahajan, Srilekha Majumdar and D.C.Agnihotri and published by NIEPA in 1995, writes “The royal family of Sikkim took a keen interest in education and considered it to be a social service; one of the councilors of the royal ‘darbar’ generally looked after it. In 1920, the Maharaja of Sikkim reorganized the education department and placed it under the administration of a full-fledged Director of Education who was assisted by a ‘Board’ under the headship of a President. In 1922, the Education Department was placed under the Judicial Secretary.”  However, many of the senior and retired officials of the department say that in 1950, an officer was given the charge of the Education Department; in 1953 the first Executive Councilor of the department was appointed and a full-fledged Director of Education was appointed only in the year 1954. The first Inspector of Schools was appointed in Sikkim in 1945.

In between 1880-1945 AD, almost within forty five years, only ten schools were established in the district. However, after 1945, there was a marked increase in the number of schools and it is surprisingly increased to 70.  The chart given below gives the details of decade-wise number of State Government schools established in the district before its merger in Indian Union.

The establishment of schools after 1975 AD got fillip when Sikkim is merged in Indian Union. The highest numbers of school are established in the decade of 1976-85 AD. Almost 42% of the total schools of the district at present are established within this decade. This is considered as the most fertile period in the history of Education of the district. The schools established in this decade are with proper mapping and planning and many of these schools are, at present, upgraded to higher schools. The table given below throws the light on decadal establishment of schools in the district after 1975:

Decadal Establishment of State Government Schools in South Sikkim District after 1975

Decade	Numbers of School established	Percentage	Remarks
Upto 1975	80	34	There are 237 State Government Schools in the district at present. The percentage is calculated on 237.
1976-1985	94	40
1986-1995	36	15
1996-2005	14	06
2006-2012	13	05

Source: DISE

The above table shows that 157 schools are established in the district after 1975 which is about 66% of the total state government schools of the district at present. The table also shows that maximum numbers of schools were established between 1976 and 1985 and there is gradual saturation in subsequent decades.

Regarding the establishment of private schools in the district, the district has no traces of evidence private schools before the merger of Sikkim in Indian Union barring some of the community managed unaided schools. The available records reveal that the establishment of private schools started only after 1975 AD. A table is given below to show the decadal growth of private schools in the district.

Establishment of Private schools in South Sikkim District on Decadal Basis

Decade	Numbers of School established	Percentage	Remarks
Upto 1975	0	0	As above, the total number of Private Schools in the District is 124 and the percentage is calculated on 124.
1976-1985	4	03
1986-1095	22	18
1996-2005	63	51
2006-2012	35	28

Source: DISE

The given table shows that the establishment of private schools was the highest during the decade 1996-2005 AD. The trend of establishment of private schools is fast growing. The trend of enrolment is also going high in private schools showing remarkable decline in the enrolment of government schools. The decline in trend during 2006-2012 is due to the criteria mandated by the RTE Act for starting of private schools.

The above chart indicates that the establishment of the government schools began to decline after 1985 and on the contrary, establishment of private schools got its tempo after the same year. The logic behind the establishments of government schools are for the provision of schooling access to the children of different habitations as per the norms of neighbourhood mapping. However, the establishment of private schools is the indication of educational awareness and the attainment of affording capacity of civil society on education of their children.

Involvement of Community and PRIs in School Management

The involvement of community in schooling process in Sikkim started when the community thought about the formal education of their children. It was the community who voluntarily came forward to start the schools in the rural Sikkim. They contributed land, constructed school buildings and managed the salary of community appointed teachers. These schools were called Committee Schools as these schools were managed and run by the Committee.

Contrary to present form of School Management Committee, there were clear cut division of responsibilities between the teacher and the school committee. No teachers were given any portfolio in the school committee and had no saying in the school managements.  They were solely given the responsibility of curricular works of the school. Any person having command over the people of the village or respected by the people of the village were made presidents of the school committees. The presidents of the committees were considered important persons bearing sole powers and they were the steering bearer of the school developments. The structure of the school committee was very simple consisting of only 4-5 members. The post of President was the important post and one treasurer called khajanchi worked under the president. The work of the khajanchi was to keep the accounts and records of the assets of the committee.  Very often khajanchi had the duty to visit the parents’ houses to collect monthly parental contribution for the payment to the teachers.

The curriculum of these community-run schools was very simple. “Thulo Barnamala”, a book (primer) written by Kashi Bahadur Shrestha, was the only book for class I, which consist of alphabets, number charts, simple addition, subtraction, multiplication and division. The medium of the instruction was Nepali and the board was ‘West Bengal Board of Secondary Education’ for matriculation. The schools were like present single teacher school, mostly having one teacher appointed by the school committee. As decided by the committee, the children used to give rice, cereals, salt, oil, vegetables etc. to the teacher called “Masterji” as monthly fees.

After Sikkim’s merger in Indian Union, almost all these community-run schools were taken over by the government as formal schools. The management of the school was entrusted to the school-heads and slowly the communities were ignored in the management of schools. In late 1990s, after the panchayat election of 1997 which was conducted on the line of the Seventy-Third Constitutional Amendment Act, 1992, the matter of inclusion of PRIs in the School Management Committee of elementary schools became mandatory in the district. Before this, the PRIs were rarely included in the School Managing Committees. In March 2000, the Director of Education served a Circular vide No. 541/Est/Edn dated 15.3.2000, just after the reopening of the schools for the academic session 2000-01, regarding the constitution of School Management Committee in the schools upto Junior High School level under the chairmanship of concerned school heads. The circular reads like “… The school managing committee under the chairmanship of the primary/JHS (Junior High School), Headmaster would include the local panchayat, a member of the block panchayat, teachers’ representatives and two parents’ representatives as member… This form of school managing committee should beset up in the secondary and senior secondary schools, wherein the Principal/Headmaster will be the chairman and a member of the Zilla Panchayat will be co-opted along with other school committee members as in Junior High Schools to help the administration of the school,” which gives idea about the structure of the school management committee.  However, there was no special mention of the inclusion of women, Scheduled Caste, Scheduled Tribe in the School Management Committee.

The Circular has also the mentions of responsibilities of School Management Committee in two spheres viz Administrative and Academic. The responsibilities mentioned in the circular were as under:

1. Administrative:

a.      Attendance and punctuality of teachers and students.

b.     Maintenance of discipline in the school. Ensuring proper turnout of the students in the school uniforms.

c.      Maintenance and repairs of the schools and its compound.

2. Academic:

a.      Maintenance of teachers’ diary.

b.     Timely completion of the syllabus within each semester.

c.      Ensuring homework is given and checked by the teachers.

d.     Extra classes be organized for weak students.

 

Another beautiful aspect of the circular was the instructions incorporated in it. The instructions can be summarized as under:

a.      SMC meets once in a month to discuss administration and review the activities organized in the school

b.     The school heads will submit quarterly reports of SMC meetings including the proposals for improvement of school functioning, requirement of furniture, maintenance of school building, vacancies of teaching and non-teaching staff.

c.      The school heads try to inculcate in the teachers and students civic sense by getting the school campus cleaned on regular basis.

d.     The school heads and teachers educate the children the social obligations by looking after all public property and developmental schemes undertaken in their areas by the government.

e.      One period a week could be set aside for extra-curricular activities (Co-scholastic activities)

However, none of the above statement has mentions about the role of the PRIs in the school management committee. This shows that the organization was reluctant to involve PRIs in the management of the school education.

The next panchayat election was conducted in October 2002. After this election another development has happened in the composition of school management committee of elementary schools as it was instructed that the chairman of school management committee should be the member of PRIs and the school head remain as member secretary of the committee. 

The latest change in the composition of School Management Committee took place after the enactment of the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act, 2009 in the State. The Human Resource Development Department, Government of Sikkim served a Circular vide Ref. No. 721/l/SPO/SSA/HRDD; dated 27/05/2011 directing the elementary schools to reconstitute the school management committee as per the composition norms laid by the Act. The Circular has mentioned that the constitution of School Management Committee is compulsory in every school, other than unaided schools and to be reconstituted in every two years. It reads the following for the composition of new School Management Committee:

1.     75% of the strength of School Management Committee (SMC) shall be from amongst parents or guardians of children;

2.     Remaining 25% of the strength of the School Management Committee (SMC) shall be from among the following persons, namely

a)     One-third of members from amongst the elected members of Local Authority, to be decided by the Local Authority;

b)     One-third members from amongst teachers from the school, to be decided by the teachers of the school;

c)     Remaining one-third from amongst local educationist whose children are in the school, to be decided by the parents in the committee;

3.     50% members in total shall be female

To manage its affairs, the School Management Committee shall elect a Chairperson and Vice Chairperson from among the parent members. The Head of the School or where the school does not have a school head, the senior most teacher of the school, shall be the ex-officio member-convener of the School Management Committee. The School Management Committee shall meet at least once in a month and the minutes and decisions of the meetings shall be properly recorded and made available to the public. 

The Circular also has the mentions about the functions of the School Management Committee. The excerpt from the Circular is given below:

The School Management Committee shall perform following functions:

a)     Monitor the working of the school;

b)     Identify the needs, prepare, recommend and monitor the School Development Plan;

c)     Monitor the utilization of grants received from the appropriate Government or Local Authority or any other source;

d)     Communicate in simple and creative ways to the population in the neighbourhood of the school, the rights of the child as enunciated in the Act; as also duties of State Government, Local Authority, school, parent and guardian;

e)     Ensure the enrolment and continued attendance of all the children from the neighbourhood in the school;

f)      Bring to notice of the Local Authority any deviation from the rights of the child, in particular mental and physical harassment of children, denial of admission, realizing capitation fee/donation from students.  

g)     Ensure that no teacher shall engage himself or herself in private tuition or private teaching activity;

h)    Ensure that a teacher appointed shall perform the following duties:

i.                 maintain regularity and punctuality in attending school;

ii.               conduct and complete the curriculum specified by the State Academic Authority;

iii.             complete entire curriculum within the specified time;

iv.              assess the learning ability of each child and accordingly supplement additional instructions, if any, as required;

v.                hold regular meetings with parents and guardians and apprise them about the regularity in attendance, ability to learn, progress made in learning and any other relevant information about the child.

i)      Monitor the identification and enrolment of, and facilities for learning by disabled children, and ensure their participation in, and completion of elementary education;

j)      Monitor the implementation of the Mid-Day Meal and quality of education in the school;

k)     Prepare an annual account of receipts and expenditure of the school.

This is the first Circular served by the department which has clear mentions about the roles and functions of School Management Committee. In addition, the Secondary and Senior Secondary Schools having elementary classes should have separate School Management Committee for elementary level as per the composition norms laid by the RTE Act.

It has been found in various researches that the active involvement of community (parents) and PRIs (Local Authority) in school management increases the efficiency of the school. There are lots of examples in the district how community contributed to schools. The community and PRIs have constructed buildings to meet up shortage of classrooms, constructed playground, pavilion, footpaths, engaged volunteer teachers during the shortage of teachers in the school, donated land for school establishment, donated materials like cements, rods, etc. for school repair, etc. On the other hand, it is also important that the school should welcome and encourage their involvement in school management. The community hardly refuses to be the part of school management because they know that their children are being benefitted because of their involvement. However, the school needs to make them feel how their contributions have increased the school performance like increase in children’s attendance and punctuality in the class, increase in children’s achievement levels, increase in children’s retention in the school, increase in participation of girl children in school, etc. The most important point is that the degree of their contribution depends on the accessibility provided by the schools for their involvement in school management.  

References:

1.      Government of India (2009). The Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act, 2009. New Delhi.

2.      Government of Sikkim (2006). The Sikkim Panchayat Manual – A compilation of Notifications relating to Panchayats in Sikkim 1993 – 2006. Gangtok: Rural Development Management and Development Department. 

3.      Government of Sikkim. (2010). The Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Rules, 2010. Gangtok: Human Resource Development Department.

4.      Government of Sikkim. Annual Work Plan & Budget (2003 to 2012). Namchi: Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan, Human Resource Development Department, South Sikkim. 

5.      Government of Sikkim. Circulars. Gangtok: Human Resource Development Department.

6.      Government of Sikkim. Reports generated by DISE (District Elementary System for Education) (2003 to 2012). Namchi: Human Resource Development Department.

7.      Mahajan, Baldev; Majumdar, Shrilekha & Agnihotri, DC, (1995) Educational Administration in Sikkim (Structures, Processes and Future Prospects), New Delhi, National Institute of Educational Planning and Administration.

8.      Thulung,Prem. (1998). Sikkimma Shikshako Vikas (Sanchhipta Parichaya), Namchi: Prem Thulung, Thulung House, Boomtar Namchi.

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