Community Participation in School Education

Community participation is recognized as a crucial aspect of the school education in India. The on-going Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan strives to achieve community participation through Village Education Committees with specific mandate that include enhancing enrolment and retention, micro planning and school management, fiscal responsibility and accountability for bringing improvement in the quality of education in elementary schools. The Village Education Committee have been put in place as the effective mechanism for keeping the people closer to the quality issues of elementary education in government schools. The Right to Education Act (RTE) 2009 also recognizes the role of local governance in school education. Formation of School Management Committee is mandatory under RTE for every school to monitor and oversee its working, and to plan and facilitate its overall development with representation of parents, teachers and community and local authority members. Therefore, it has become immensely important to know how far these committees have been able to achieve their goals. What are the views of the people about these bodies? What problems and constraints do these committees face? What can be the mechanisms by which the functioning of Village Education Committees/ School Management Committees can be strengthened? The efforts are made in the volume to answer these questions and it can serve as a reference material for all stakeholders in the field of school education.