Top Lessons India Should Take from Government Schools in Delhi
Arvind Kejriwal, the chief minister of Delhi, praised the education team on Wednesday and noted that two government schools in the nation’s capital topped the list of state government day schools nationwide. “Proud of my Team Education,” wrote Kejriwal in a tweet, “as Delhi Govt schools once again top the Education World School Rankings, with the finest state govt school in India.”
Rajkiya Pratibha Vikas Vidyalaya, Sector 10, Dwarka, a government-run school, earned the top spot in the ranking, followed by Rajkiya Pratibha Vikas Vidyalaya, Yamuna Vihar, according to Education World (EW), a website for teachers, parents, and students that publishes rankings for schools each year. According to him, Delhi is home to five of the top 10 schools. He praised the Delhi government’s education team and called the “accomplishment” “an extraordinary feat.
Top Things India Should Learn from Delhi Government Schools are~
1)Infrastructure Improvements for Schools:
In his book Shiksha: My Experiments as an Education Minister, Sisodia describes his initial shock upon entering government institutions for the first time. The school’s infrastructure was in ruins, with overcrowded classrooms, playgrounds covered in trash, and bathrooms that were no longer functional. The “Quality of learning environments is inextricably tied to the self-respect that children feel coming into their school,” Sisodia tells us, and this has a direct bearing on student motivation and engagement.
The Delhi Model initially aimed to alter this. We were able to improve the infrastructure at all 1,024 of our government schools. These schools’ infrastructural upgrades were implemented in a military-style manner. 25 new schools were erected to make up for overcrowded classrooms in 2019; 8,000 new classrooms were built, on track to reach the original goal of 30,000.
A total of 54 model schools were chosen to be upgraded with better infrastructure, including SMART classrooms, sports facilities, and science labs with modern equipment, in order to improve the campuses themselves. Another 100 schools are expected to be built by the year 2030. Since 2018, the government has also provided at least 5 lakhs to every government school annually, which they use in accordance with the needs of the school, whether they are academic or in terms of infrastructure.
2) Developing School Administrators and Teachers:
The function of principals, who serve as effective heads of schools, is frequently limited to administrative and bureaucratic duties in the majority of public schools in India. Since 2015, the Delhi Government has conducted numerous meetings with principals to gain insight into the factors that prevented them from creating a compelling learning vision for their schools.
The absence of an enabling environment was quickly identified by the government as a significant factor. As a result, Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad’s leadership development programmes were first provided to principals of Delhi’s government schools. Additionally, teachers were flown to Cambridge for training sessions. This gave them access to some of the top universities in the country and around the world as well as some cutting-edge techniques for teaching and learning that they could use with their own students back home.
The government also took action to lessen administrative burdens in response to their feedback. The freedom to allocate funds to enhance educational outcomes was granted to principals for the first time. Additionally, schools could now allocate funds for a separate estate manager to handle infrastructure problems, easing the administrative strain placed on principals. The best interests of their schools were considered while making choices, and principals were urged to create a five to ten year plan for their institution and its pupils. All administrative barriers, such as drawn-out Directorate approval processes, protracted approval processing times, and other obstacles, were also eliminated.
Dr. Niranjan Shahi, Head of School at the Government Boys Senior Secondary School in Mundka, comments on her experience with the reforms, saying, “I got an opportunity to introspect and visualise my position from many aspects. My leadership in the school community has improved because of these innovations, which have made me a more optimistic, sensitive, and sympathetic person. This has allowed my school to succeed in all areas, not just the classroom.
The government invested in inviting and educational staff rooms because it understood the crucial role that instructors play in forming students’ values, beliefs, and worldviews. By allocating tablets to all teachers to simplify reporting and administrative tasks, as well as by minimising non-teaching activities like participating in government surveys and censuses, the focus has been reduced back to teaching.
By institutionalising on-site support for teachers, the Mentor Teacher (MT) Program, which was first conceived of in 2016, significantly altered the framework of inadequate in-service teacher training. In the initial batch of MTs, 200 teachers from the Directorate of Education were chosen, and over the course of two years, they used their innovative skills to support other teachers’ on-the-job learning while also organising workshops to improve their academic and pedagogical capabilities. Assuring teachers’ personal and professional progress significantly contributed to their renewed motivation to advance the teaching profession.
In Delhi’s educational paradigm, new initiatives like Mission Buniyaad, the Happiness Curriculum, and the Entrepreneurship Mindset Curriculum have all been designed, implemented, and evaluated in large part thanks to mentor teachers.
3)Partners in a Learner’s Journey: Parents
The majority of students in Delhi’s public schools are first-generation college students. Many parents had never visited their child’s school because of socio-cultural restrictions, which greatly strained the relationship between instructors and parents and stifled the development of the students. Reactivating school management committees (SMCs) and holding frequent parent-teacher meetings were two efforts that made an effort to remedy this (PTMs).
SMCs are required by the Right to Education Act for every school (2009). Each SMC shall have 16 members, including the Principal, a local MLA representative, a teacher, a social worker, and 12 parent or guardian representatives. The SMC assists the Principal with important choices and directly communicates with the government about the problems, difficulties, and successes of running the school.
PTMs were introduced and held on the same day in all government schools every three to four months to help foster and strengthen confidence between parents and teachers. Employers all around the state were urged to provide parents half-day leaves in order to encourage them to attend the PTMs. Additionally, they received publicity through radio, print, and WhatsApp circular advertisements. By establishing this area for participation, parents now had the chance to interact with teachers and learn about their kids’ development in both academics and behaviour on an equal basis.
4)Reimagining Each Child’s Learning Pathway:
The government is required to address learning gaps in students concurrently and with comparable rigour, in addition to some of the systemic and structural problems that plague Delhi’s educational system.
To close these learning gaps and bring pupils’ learning up to grade level, numerous learning initiatives were undertaken. One of them, Chunauti 2018, sought to close the foundational learning gaps between Grades 6 and 8, enabling pupils to read, write, and do basic math operations in order to achieve learning outcomes relevant to their grade level. In her article for The Indian Express, Mallica Joshi claims that Chunauti has had a significant influence on learning indicators. From 48% in 2018 to 63% in 2019, more pupils in grades 6–9 were able to read at the proper grade level. Similarly, grade-level numeracy abilities increased from 56% in 2018 to 73% in 2019.
Another noteworthy instance is the well-known Happiness Curriculum, which was implemented in July 2018 and is taught to all students from Kindergarten through Grade 8 in a daily session. The programme encourages students to develop abilities like empathy, critical thinking, problem-solving, communication, and teamwork through engaging mindfulness activities. Neelam Dogra, a teacher at the Government Girls Senior Secondary School in JJ Nangloi, reports that following the mindfulness training, the girls have improved their ability to concentrate, maintain order, and maintain calm. Students become more creative and innovative in how they approach their job as their capacity for concentration grows.
In addition to these, they give out sanitary napkins, and the education minister puts in a tremendous amount of time and effort.