From hiring teachers to sanitation staff, heads of Delhi government schools were on Wednesday asked by Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia to utilise the funds allocated to School Management Committees (SMCs) for improving their schools.
In a first, Mr. Sisodia, who is also Education Minister, began a series of meetings with heads of schools, starting with 150 on Wednesday, a government statement said. He will be meeting heads of all around 1,000 Delhi government schools in the coming days.
SMC fund
Speaking to heads of schools about the ₹5 lakh to ₹7 lakh SMC fund per school, Mr. Sisodia said: “Now you have the financial grants and powers both. Till now, heads of schools were dependant on the Directorate of Education for every small work. Heads of schools are the chairpersons of SMCs, and together with the elected members they can now run their schools efficiently.”
Appealing to heads of schools to use the amount efficiently, Mr. Sisodia said: “You can now hire teachers for up to 200 hours and you can engage gardeners. Depending on the need for cleanliness and other sanitation issues, you can also hire additional labour.”
He added that the SMC fund can be used to hire resource persons or experts for subjects and co-curricular activities. Mr. Sisodia said heads of schools who are able to utilise the funds well would be rewarded while those do “indulge in wrong practices will be punished”, the statement said.
Speaking about the happiness curriculum, which was introduced earlier this year, Mr. Sisodia asked heads of schools to emphasise the programme that focuses on teaching mindfulness to students.
“Mindfulness is the most important element of the happiness curriculum. We have to make our children attentive instead of asking them to practice meditation. In case we succeed in inculcating the habit of being attentiveness in our children, they will do well throughout their lives,” he said.
