Parents to turn 'school mitras' in Delhi government schools for better outreach

NEW DELHI: Delhi’s government schools will engage volunteers as school mitra (school friends) to ensure parents’ participation for their effective monitoring and to fix accountability of the administrations.

These volunteers will be selected from among parents who will work in coordination with School Management Committees (SMCs) for parents outreach programmes. 

“In schools, where enrolments are higher, the SMC may consider engaging school mitras to volunteer in parents outreach programmes. They will work with SMC members in reaching out in different communities and settlements from which children come. Each school mitra will be given the task to reach out to a maximum of 50 students and their families,” said an official.

The provision for volunteers has been made in the revised guidelines issued recently to bridge the gap between parents and schools for effective implementation of SMCs’ schemes.

“SMC members and school mitra will be in touch with the parents on an ongoing basis either telephonically, home visits or one-on-one conversations. During pandemic, outreach may be through phone calls but in a post-pandemic situation, the SMC members and school mitra will be encouraged to meet and interact with parents directly or via community meetings. They should speak to each parent at least once a month,” added the official.

As mandated under the Right to Education Act 2009, SMCs were formed in 2015 in 1,023 government schools. It is a panel comprising parents and teachers, which monitors and assists in functioning of the school. The SMCs hold activities such as summer camps and reading fairs to prevent absenteeism.

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A recent report released by Boston Consulting Group (BCG) on Delhi education reforms says that despite the active involvement of the SMCs, 63% of parents aren’t aware of the existence of the committees.

The officials said that given the BCG report, the role of school mitra would be important.  

“Schools with high enrolments have a very large number of parents therefore the 16- member SMC may be too small to reach out to a large parent body. Hence, revised guidelines with the provision of school mitras were released for smooth implementation of the outreach,” said the official, privy to the matter.

According to the guidelines, a school may seek help from SMC parent members, social workers, representatives of area MLA to identify parents to become school mitras.