Leadership lessons for civic school principals…..Dipti Sonawala
The pilot project, called school excellence programme, is funded by UNICEF
To ensure that municipal schools are run in a professional manner, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) is training principals in professional administrative skills. The pilot project, called School Excellence Programme, is funded by UNICEF. Principals and headmasters from 100 civic schools will participate in the project. The programme will be conducted with the help of organisations like Aakanksha and Kaivalya Foundation.
Deputy Municipal Commissioner (Education) Arvind Hire said, “The headmasters of BMC schools are more involved in the academic work of the school. Through this training programme we aim to build capabilities within the system and enhance leadership qualities of school heads. With the help of NGOs we will motivate them to adopt professional administrative skills and develop methods to improve the working system of municipal schools.”
After the training programme, principals of municipal schools will be expected to convene staff meetings with detailed agenda. They will also be trained to carry out educational programmes for students and handle conflict situations.
For the first batch, headmasters and principals from Hindi, Marathi and Urdu-medium schools have been chosen. “From the next academic year we will train more headmasters under this programme,” added Hire. S Godke, principal, Janabai Rokde Municipal School said, “After this training I feel my responsibility has increased. From now on my job will not just be to teach students but will include improving the working of the school, its teaching and non-teaching staff.”
Rohini Sharma, a teacher from Vinobha Bhave Nagar Municipal School in Kurla, said, “ If a headmaster of a school acts like a CEO then we can bring out a lot changes in the school and the standard of teaching will improve too.”