CHENNAI: The school education department, through a government order, has instructed the Samagra Shiksha state project director, school education director, and elementary education director to identify the infrastructural needs of institutions based on the resolutions taken by the school management committees (SMCs), which are also uploaded in the TNSED Parent App.
The formation of SMCs in government schools are mandated under the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act 2009 to oversee and facilitate the development of schools. In TN, the SMCs were reconstituted in April and July 2022 and the parent application was launched in September 2022. “Since then, there has been a steady flow of resolutions into the app. An analysis shows nearly 61% of needs recorded by the schools are infrastructural, which are received from parents and other SMC members,” said the GO.
The GO added the state is at a juncture to enhance the existing system of gathering requirements in a much legitimate way and SMCs could be one of the most reliable sources. When these requirements are recorded in the app, there is transparency and the needs can be validated by the district administration, it added.
The member-secretary of the TN Model Schools has requested for a GO to ascertain the schools’ needs only from the information made available in the app. As per the new system, the infrastructure projects proposed under the Namma School-Namma Ooru Palli (NSNOP) and the School Infrastructure Development Scheme should be supported by SMC resolutions. This will then be validated through the Palli Parvai application and sent to the respective authorities, stated the government order.