Harvard to study government school initiatives

New Delhi: The Delhi government’s initiative to involve parents in the School Management Committees (SMCs) has won accolades from Harvard University, which will now conduct a research project on the same. The Harvard Graduate School of Education had asked for Delhi government’s permission to carry out a research on the SMCs and the government has given a go-ahead to conduct the project with some riders. The SMCs were constituted by the Aam Aadmi Party government two years ago and the officials have declared they have received better results after the initiative.

The government has given the permission for the research project on the conditions that the number of the teachers and the students will not be shared with the research team. Officials said that the research team will be allowed to speak to the parents during the Parent Teacher Meetings (PTMs). 

According to the reports, assistant professor of the Harvard Graduate School of Education Emmerich Davis during his tour to India had met Delhi deputy chief minister Manish Sisodia and asked for his permission to conduct a research on the SMCs in the Delhi government schools. After consulting with the officials of the education department, the government has finally sent a letter of approval to Harvard.

The research team will work on the work done by the SMCs in the last two years. “Delhi’s work on parent participation in schools via School Managemnt Committees (SMC) gets acclaim; Harvard to do research on Delhi SMCs,” Atishi Marlena, advisor to the education minister tweeted on the feat. Officials said that the AAP government had constituted SMCs in the Delhi government schools two years ago, which have been able to raise the standards of education in the government schools. New experiments such as organisation of reading melas were carried out under the initiative.

The involvement of SMC members in the making the decisions for the schools proved to be beneficial for the students. The SMCs were constituted for a period of two years and the elections will soon be conducted to elect new members. The SMCs have 16 members — 12 parents, one principal, one teacher, a representative of the MLA and one social worker.