School accreditation programme launched

DIBRUGARH, Dec 2: The school accreditation programme launched by Quality Council of India aims to enable suppliers of services as well as empower their users. This was said by the Secretary General of the autonomous body, Giridhar J Gyani, during a press meet held at the Mohanbari Airport here today. He is here to attend the education convention being organized at Ramakrishna Mission at Narottam Nagar in Arunachal Pradesh, which will be attended by the Principals of schools in Northeast India, to promote the programme.

The Quality Control of India (QCI) was formed around ten years ago to ascertain that the quality of Indian products matched those of global standards. It started the school accreditation programme around seven months back to ensure quality education in high schools and holistic development of students in these institutions. The body takes into account three components, namely governance, curriculum as well as support services and the manner of measuring performance during their evaluation before awarding their accreditation. Since its launch, eight schools including five New Delhi Municipality Corporation Schools have managed to get the recognition. The Council is in the process of making the final module of the implementation process in Gujarat.

Addressing mediapersons, Gyani gave a brief outline of the activities and mission of the QCI. Since enhancement of IQ happens between the age of seven to fourteen years, it becomes important to give them the right kind of education during this period to ensure their all round development, he added, while explaining the reason behind taking education of schools within their purview. Lamenting over the state of primary education in the country, the QCI Secretary General stated that the low self esteem seen in most primary teachers was indicative of the fact that society has failed to give them their due credit. He said that, Kendriya Vidyalaya Sangathan had already signed a memorandum of understanding with the Council and the nine hundred schools under it would follow their standard. Gyani further said that, their focus was on improving the quality of education in the 1.8 million schools under various State Boards in the country. He also mentioned that, they had taken into account the disadvantage faced by rural schools in respect to urban ones and set a five-level accreditation.

The QCI official said that, the programme was yet to be made compulsory and revealed that suggestion had been made to the Union Minister of Education, Kapil Sibal, to make it incentive driven to encourage the voluntary participation of boards. He said that, Governments had good bylaws, which were hardly followed. Gyani stated that, their process of participation would start in schools only after the latter’s compliance to the regulations in place. He later talked about the Council’s accreditation programme in the health sector.

Meanwhile, the QCI is trying to form State Chapters, which will be run by local stakeholders. Unless the States take the ownership, the whole programme will turn out to be mere eyewash, Gyani asserted. THE SENTINEL