Sabhas to address student issues

In an attempt to redress grievances of schoolchildren, the Aam Aadmi Party government will be conducting school management committee (SMC) sabhas every three months. According to a government notification, the constituency level meetings will be conducted by the directorate of education.

“It would be a collective meeting of all SMC members of all the school in each Assembly,” the circular issued on July 21 said. Last year, elections were held in 1,100 government and government aided schools to elect the SMCs. As per Delhi government, 75 per cent of the 16,000 elected members are parents.

In every school the SMC has 16 members which include the principal, one teacher, one social worker, one elected representative and 12 elected members. AAP MLA Praveen Kumar, who is the parliamentary secretary to deputy chief minister Manish Sisodia, said that the committees function as eyes and ears of the government in schools.

“The SMCs were reconstituted so that Delhi government schools become more responsible to parents,” Mr Kumar said. These committees hold local-level meetings every two months to assess the progress on implementation of the school development plan.

SMC sabhas are meant to provide a bigger platform to parents to raise their concerns. “The list of issues and grievances raised in each of these SMC sabhas shall be prepared by the DOE (zone) and counter signed by the MLA to be submitted to the directorate of education as well as to the office of the minister of education,” the government circular says.

Each district office of the department has been asked to submit an action taken report on the issues raised during the public meetings.

The SMC sabhas are expected to be held alongside mohalla sabhas that will begin one and a half months later, according to Mr Kumar.