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Community and Schools

Who is better qualified to run a school than the community around it?

Recognising this, the government of Karnataka named its schools Nammura Shale (Our Town School). They went on to give meaning to the title by allowing the community a limited, but involvement-encouraging, say in the running of their local school. Accordingly, each government school has a School Development Monitoring Committee (SDMC), comprising local leaders and parents of children in the school, which is responsible for the school affairs locally. All grants released from the government flow through the SDMC account and one of the SDMC members, along with the school Principal, are jointly responsible for the utilisation of funds. Issues faced by the schools are discussed at SDMC meetings, held mandatorily every month and attended by SDMC members and school staff. The school-community involvement also permits the benefit of sensible decentralisation.

Sikshana uses the SDMC channel to route the funds that are earmarked for schools. With this step, Sikshana is able to ensure that SDMCs and their respective schools work closely with each other to improve the quality of education in their school.