Mumbai schools may get school management committee

MUMBAI: The concept of School Management Committee (SMC), which is being carried out in rural schools of Maharashtra, may soon be implemented in city schools too.

Currently, instead of SMC, city schools have Parents Teachers Associations (PTA), which aims at building good relations between teachers/management and parents for the benefit of students. Yet parents seem dissatisfied with the major decisions taken by schools.

Meanwhile, the state education department is getting a good response from parents and schools in Zilla Parishad and other taluka-level in the state.

 Some of the highlights of SMC in rural schools include, ‘A day at school’, where parents along with grandparents and siblings spend the entire day at school with teachers, headmistress and the student.

There is also the ‘Personalised mid-day meal’, which is created by teachers and parents together as per the ingredients schools receive for the mid-day meal every month.

“By mixing, matching and twisting the ingredients, a new dish is created once or twice a week to charge the students,” a teacher from the Nashik district school said.

‘HM-Parents brainstorming’ is another innovative programme under the SMC which helps both the stakeholders to understand students’ requirements in order to increase productivity.

 SMC and PTA both functions equally however a major difference is the level of involvement.

Prachi Sathe, officer on special duty of state government explained, “PTA is limited to open houses, fee hike discussions, etc. While with SMC, a student is discussed in and out by the teacher and the parents. This way, both of them know what is to be done to help the student do better in every way. Moreover, education is looked at in a different manner in rural areas as most students are first generation learners.”

The state education department is in talks with schools in the city to bring SMC in all level schools including civic, government-aided and open board schools.