Improve my school- why?

Simple, to Make a Good School GREAT. Every school can be improved; no matter how good it may be. Being more efficient, up to date, cost effective and industry leader is now every institution's goal.

Working in various capacities in the K-12 education domain, I have enjoyed observing, talking, and working with school leaders. As a result, I have learned a lot about how leadership teams function, what barriers they identify to improving student achievement, and what strategies they have found that work.

I have observed that schools appear to be challenged by two major barriers: 

• Too many demands and too little time to meet all of them 

• Too many priorities and too little clarity on where schools should focus their efforts 

There are an exorbitant number of demands made on schools, probably felt most keenly by principals. Principals (as well as teachers) who try to meet those multifarious demands often feel tired, confused, and fragmented. So how do effective principals focus their school on improvement efforts? Some thoughts

Write a Weekly Newspaper Column: It will highlight the school's successes, focus on individual teacher's efforts, and give students recognition. It will also deal with challenges that the school is facing and needs that that the school has. 

Writing the newspaper column will enable the public to see what is going on within the school. It will allow them the opportunity to see both the successes and obstacles that the school is facing.

Recognize Teacher of the Month: Every month recognize a special teacher. The teacher of the month can be voted by the faculty.
This will allow the individual teacher to be recognized for her hard work and dedication to education. It will mean more to that individual since she was voted by her peers. It will allow that teacher to feel good about herself and the job that she is doing.

Conduct a Yearly Business Fair: Every year invite businesses to participate in an annual school fair. The entire school will spend a few hours learning important things about those businesses such as what they do, how many people work there, and what skills are needed to work there. This allows the business community the opportunity to come into the school and show students what all they do. It provides the students with opportunities to see if they are interested in working in a particular business.

Our experience and thoughts are only worth as much as they are used to make a better tomorrow. Let us go out and Develop Schools

RTE – the Reality

Rita Wilson, Chief Editor

(Ex-chief executive and Secretary, ICSE)

Implementation of the Right to Education Act is running into stormy waters as there is a shortage of nearly ten lakh teachers in the country. Adding to this is the shortage of government-run teacher training institutes. Thus, potential teachers rush to privately managed institutes, where the quality of training imparted leaves much to be desired and as a result only a fraction manage to clear the eligibility test.

As per the Right to Education Act guidelines, the Pupil-Teacher ratio should be 30:1 in primary classes and 35:1 in upper primary classes. One wonders how will we able to fill the gap of ten lakh teachers by 2015 as mandated by the Right to Education Act. Where will we be able to train these teachers?

"Teachers' training has become an ill sector. The training institutes are in ICU, it is like a situation of helplessness," says Prof Krishna Kumar, former Director, NCERT. He says the status of the teacher has been degraded with many north Indian states hiring ill-trained teachers on contract, as adhoc or "para-teachers".

In the entire Hindi belt, there is a new phenomenon of hiring para-teachers. There is a massive movement going on with teachers across states agitating and protesting on issues like regularisation of jobs and better salaries, but it is not being highlighted by the media. North India has forgotten its teachers.

A sample survey by NGO Right to Education Forum revealed that para-teachers or lowly paid contract teachers now constitute a major part in many states. The study also says that one out of ten teachers is sub-contract or proxy teacher who come in place of government-appointed teachers by bypassing the selection process and with no vetting of their qualifications.

Successive governments have been encouraging private players in the teacher training sector with no checks and balances in place. Today the government needs to regulate and restructure teacher training. The NCTE needs to be revived and given teeth to regulate the quality of teacher-training if the government is serious about the implementation of the Right to Education Act.