Date:14/08/2007 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2007/08/14/stories/2007081461670300.htm

Kerala - Thiruvananthapuram

Mechanism to monitor standard of education mooted

Staff Reporter

The community-led monitoring will serve as a benchmark for schools

It will use check-lists and questionnaires
Aims at cultivating healthy competition

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The Education Department has proposed a community-led monitoring system where local self-help groups, in association with school managements, teachers, students, administrative functionaries and parents, objectively evaluate the standard of education in individual schools.

The monitoring conducted with the aid of approved check-lists and questionnaires will serve as a benchmark for schools.

Another important objective will be to examine whether the community-led audit can be used to constitute an accreditation system for schools similar to that for colleges. The accreditation system will be simple enough to be administered by the community and will be designed to capture community perceptions on quality in an objective manner.

According to the department, there is an urgent need for a total revamp of the education system in order to ensure better education for financially backward students. The existing curriculum, teaching and learning practices, and academic monitoring and supervision have remained static and are hence unable to meet the challenges of the changing times, according to the department.

Some of the administrative and academic supervision mechanisms, which have become ‘mere routine exercises,’ will be upgraded to include purposeful and dynamic monitoring of the academic functioning of the schools, the officials said.

The initiative aims at cultivating healthy competition among the schools with activity-based multimedia teaching.