PCEF School Group Meeting – 28 Jan 2008

Agenda
Indicators for ESR / School Annual Report
Shala Sudhar Samiti
Proposed Meetings with School Board and Prinicipals

Present
Mini Shrinivasan, Shamita Kumar, Anjali Bapat, Lalita Agashe, Ranjit Gadgil, Avinash Madhale, Sanskriti Menon

Venue
University of Pune

1. Indicators for School Education for Annual Reporting

• The School Education Dept has its own Annual Report. We should develop the reporting framework for this. Such information need not go into the Environment Status Report.
• We can begin with the list of norms and requirements from Fundamental Right to Education Act, SSA, UNICEF. These are probably already applicable to the PMC schools.
• The annual report format of the individual school should be worked out and linked to the plan for the next year.
• The individual school reports are what is aggregated and presented as the high level indicators, perhaps as X schools in A cat (all norms are met); Y schools in B cat (non-negotiable norms met but shaky on others) etc
• Mini is to check with Meher about the suggested structure/ table of contents of the School Annual Report. If done, then post to all, else develop and post.
• Mini is to post the list of indicators / norms/ requirements from the FRE, SSA, UNICEF
• Ranjit is to ask Sachin to write the source of each indicator / norm/ requirement
• The Sapta Tarankit shala system developed in Yavatmal links norms to performance review and increments of teachers and this model would be a useful input for Pune.
• Shamita is to obtain more details on the Yavatmal accountability and increments related orders.
  

2. Mini to obtain the signatures of MC on the circular to schools permitting inspection by NGOs and initiate the corroboration study in 30 schools with ARC

3. Getting new schools allocated to an area is possible through the Development Plan. As preparatory work, Ranjit and Avinash to work with BVIEER / Dept of Geography UoP to create GIS map layers (and tables) indicating population, slum population and location of schools. Based on this, some suggestions may be possible about where new schools must be provided for in the new DP currently being prepared.

4. Ranjit is to obtain and share information on the role and functioning of School Board

5. Ranjit is to obtain and share information on public disclosure law/ bill proposed under JNNURM and how it would be applicable to the School Ed Dept (what exactly would it be required to disclose)

6. Shala Sudhar Samiti: The idea is that apart from parents, interested NGOs can also be part of this Samiti and help schools improve their performance against agreed norms/ indicators. About 10 schools are to be selected by interested NGOs. KKPKP, India Sponsorship Committee (Yerwada), Swadhar (Bibwewadi), have already shown their keenness for this. These agencies and schools will also be part of the corroboration study.

7. One major difference in the classes run by NFE organizations and municipal schools may be the number of effective teaching days. Gyanshala staff in Ahmedabad cited this as a major reason. So, it might be a good idea for the School Group to look at the non-teaching / curricular work done by teachers and ways to reduce this such as by streamlining admin processes, proper computerization of record keeping etc.

8. Next meeting is planned for around 5th Feb after checking with Arthabodh and Meher and inviting them, as well as a few principals and school teachers who could provide inputs related to which type of records are already kept by schools, non-teaching tasks and ideas to streamline these, the data collected by Arthabodha and SSA if possible. The sequence of meetings was suggested as: small meeting next week to prepare the main areas of work for the School Group; School Board meeting with MC; School Principals consultation(s)

9. The main areas of work for School Group are emerging as: School Annual Report format and individual school report format; consultations with principals and teachers; Sudhar Sudhar Samiti in selected schools; streamlining admin and other processes of School Ed DEpt; enhanced public awareness of high level performance indicators of School Ed Dept.