Abstract:

Quality education is the demand of 21st century.There is different aspects related to get the quality education. Quality means such specialties which can fulfill the demands of time and situation. Such as if a person who is getting trouble to adjust in the new society and he fails to solve the current problems create questions to the education what and how he got the education. So, getting quality education is not like spoon feeding or easy meat. The role and responsibilities of different authorities are involved in this phenomenon.

Introduction:

The role of parents, community and schools are the main stakeholders related to a student’s quality education. I have focused to this because the education system has not shown the proper ability to complete the tasks and problems occurred with the education provided by Nepalese Educational institutions. The study is focused how to ensure the capabilities in the children during the time of proving the education in our formal education system.

Importance of study:

Each and every study should have with great importance for its practicality. The study which is improper and impractical is meaningless. So, I have taken that this article will play an important role for those who are really establishing the formal foundation  of learning among the responsible authorities  to ensure children’s  quality education.

Objectives of study:

The main objectives of my article are to:

1.    Provide awareness for newly establishing educational institutions for ensuring quality education.

2.    Provide guidelines for related stakeholders about their roles in education.

3.    Show  the main limitation of getting the trouble in quality education.

Role of Parents:

A kid’s education starts from home. Parents are their first teachers and they have a key role in shaping up their character. A balance of education at home and school moulds a student’s actual learning. Be a helping hand in their educational journey and travel with them with true inspiration. Parental encouragement had played a crucial role in successful students. Their role is not limited to home but involvement in school activities too.
A child’s learning scale is highly related to how they are treated at home. Here are a few ways which parents can adopt to help with their child’s education:

Be a role model: Kids would be easily inspired by what their parents do. So it would be good to be a role model in their learning phase. Parents are a kid’s first teachers and so learn the first things together at home. Show them how exciting and meaningful a school life can be if they give out their best. Inspire them to learn novel elements in and out of school with friendly reminders and guidance.

Read together: Doing things together with parents give them a sense of support and confidence. Reading the lessons together is one of the best ways to be close with the child’s learning at school. This not only improves their vocabulary but invokes interest in them to read more. It is also a good idea to visit the library together and share quality books to help them get additional knowledge than classroom lessons.

Oversee child’s activity: It is important to have an eye on the child’s activity in school and home. Their general habits are closely linked to how they perform in their studies. So give timely advices and correct any abnormal behavior right from the childhood days and inspire them to be good citizens. Help them to be more organized with their daily routine and find enough time for the lessons.

No over scheduling: It is not a good idea to over schedule them with learning activities at home. They are spending about half of their day at school. So help them schedule their extra learning and homework time at home without burdening them. Balancing the time between lessons, play time and rest is important to have a quality student life.

Provide pleasant atmosphere: Parents should make sure that the kids are provided with a peaceful and pleasant atmosphere at home. It is good to avoid discussing family problems in kid’s presence and don’t create a mess at home with unnecessary quarrels. Both father and mother should consider the importance of their study life and give them adequate moral support.

Give constructive criticism: If you notice that your kid is not performing well or giving less importance to studies, correct them at the beginning itself. However, it is not good to spoil their peace of mind with ill words. Have some patience and give only constructive criticism if you notice any downsides. Make them understand what is right and wrong rather than simply blaming them.

Help with home assignments: Giving good support to kids in their studies would really lift their spirit for learning. Show it with small gestures such as helping them with home assignments or projects. However, it is not advised to do every lesson for them and let them play. Do it together and help them with some tips and guidance in doing the assignments better.

Prepare them for tests: When it is their exam time, don’t leave them alone with their lessons. Help them to prepare for the tests with good guidance and support. You may even conduct mini tests at home before the actual test to lessen their exam worries and tensions. You may also give additional help with the lesson areas in which they are weak.

Reward them for results: Giving good motivation is important for a kid to perform better with studies. So don’t hesitate to reward them if they come up with some good results in the tests. This also gives them the spirit to perform better every next time. However, keep a limit and it is not good to over shower them with gifts for an average performance which fades away their killer instinct.

Go for educational trips: It is a good idea to go for educational trips during the holidays. Include destinations that have some relevance with what they are studying to help them have a better understanding of the lessons. Occasional trips to museums and zoos would also help them to interact with the nature and learn new things.

Maintain parent teacher relationships: Don’t skip the parent teacher meetings and interaction sessions. It is good to keep a good relation with your kid’s teachers. Learn from them about the child’s activities in school and make sure to correct the child if something is wrong. Maintaining parent teacher relationships also shows your interest in your kid’s matters which gives them a good feeling.

Set aside time for kids: It is a fact that working parents would be busy with their tight schedules. However, set aside some time for your kids and don’t leave them lonely at home. Make a comfortable space for them at home by maintaining a good parent child relationship. Eat together and play with them in the free time and go for occasional trips to free up their mind.

Monitor their learning: Some kids will take up initiatives themselves to spend time for learning at home. However, it is not the case for all and parents should make deliberate interventions for many kids. Don’t force them to do anything but do a proper monitoring about their learning at home and give friendly advices. Have a check on their leisure time if they are lacking in performance.

Prioritize child’s learning: Study life is an important phase of a kid and parents should give enough importance to it when deciding on other matters. Make it a priority and avoid unnecessary trips or functions that can affect their study schedule.

Role of Community:

A professional community organizer works with leaders within communities to promote social and economic changes. In this regard the organizer plays diverse roles that are intended to build the capacity of people to gain collective awareness and confidence to confront public issues that impact on their lives. The organizer encourages organization and remedial actions by people. This enabling role involves acting as convener, combiner, mediator, adviser, catalyst and facilitator while engaging in flexible and continuous learning and exercise of judgment and commonsense. Conversations and participatory action research are used to enhance people’s awareness and assertiveness as well as empower their direct social action to enhance their chances to access power, positions and resource.

Community Responsibility All communities value education for their children. Families either have power to take command and use it for the wellbeing of their children’s education or outsiders exploit and dominate those who are powerless and leave them worse off. Education as one of the public goods, therefore, must not only be valued by the community and the people, but must be advanced and protected or preserved. This is the responsibility of all community role players, stakeholders as well as educational institutions. A community that values education jealously claims ownership of the process as well as educational institutions.

It is important for the community to raise its concerns regarding the quality of service and products in education. The community needs to make sure that its interests as customers, consumers, clients and voters are not compromised. It is people that make organizations and systems. Community has a responsibility to ensure that education is reformed or transformed in order to meet emerging societal change. In addition communities must ensure that education is aligned or challenges beliefs about people and the values of society. Communities have a right and an obligation to expect from government, effective and efficient provision and administration of education. For our inputs we expect good outputs and outcomes. The communities’ role is to act as a watchdog and ensure that education serves people, industrial organizations, and the planet. People engage in its development, and education develops them as they involve themselves.

Role of School Environment:

Classroom environments are extremely important for students and for teachers. Everything from the colour of the walls to arrangement of the desks sends impressions to students and affect the way of a students learn. The emotional environment also will affect the learning environment and how well a student receives instructions. School environment is subdivided as:

Emotional Environment:

Crating a positive learning environment is essential for success in the classroom. Teachers should create a welcoming atmosphere where student feel safe and willing to share. Classroom should represent the students equally and everyone should know each other’s name. Teachers who use humor is the classroom also create more positive environments.

Physical Environment:

Structuring the physical environment of a classroom means of strategically placing desks, students, decorations and playing music. Desks arranged in a circle give the impression of sharing, while coupled desks work as well as  and decorations on the walls also send impressions. Light colours open up spaces and warm colours are welcoming.

Respectful Environment:

Classroom should be a place where students feel respected and feel their contributions matters. No student should be singled out or secluded in the classroom. Every student should feel accepted ,wanted and respected.

Role of Teacher

Teacher as a role model:

Teachers are founts of experience. They have been where their students are going, under what will go through and are in a position to pass along the lessons not only regarding subject matter but lessons on life. “One book, one pen, one child, one teacher can change the world.

TEACHER  Refers:

T- is for Tolerant towards other’s limitations

E- is for Enthusiastic, your approach in life

A-    is for Awesome, you do what you enjoy

C - is for Colourful, your vibrant stride

H- is for Honesty, your uprightness

E- is for Energetic, the zeal that you show

R- is for Reputable, that’s to your good/deeds

•    Learning mediator. ...
•    Interpreter and designer of learning programmes and materials. ...
•    Leader, administrator and manager. ...
•    Scholar, researcher and lifelong learner. ...
•    Community, citizenship and pastoral role. ...
•    Assessor. ...
•    Learning area/subject discipline/phase specialists
•    Be a role model for learning.
•    Pay attention what your child loves.
•    Tune into how your child learns.
•    Practice what your child learns at school.
•    Set a side time to  read together.
•    Connect what your child learns to everyday life.
•     Connect your child learns to everyday life.
•    Help your child take change of his learning.
•    Don’t over schedule your child.
•    Keep TV to a minimum.
•    Learn something new yourself.

Limitations of our education system

Party Politics and Teacher Politics:

The political movement of 1990 forced the king to abandon the Panchayat system and a new constitution was announced by the king and provided West-minister type parliamentary democracy. The Interim government formed a coalition government under the premiership of Nepali Congress leader with substantial presence of United Marxist Leninist. As a show of gratitude to the teachers who made critical participation in the political agitation all the teachers working on temporary basis given permanent appointment. By doing so, people who would have never passed the open competition examination got into the school system heralding the beginning of the deterioration of the quality of education in the public schools. Teachers started grouping under Democratic Party banner or communist/ socialist party banner.

Teacher wings of Nepali Congress Party and U.M.L. Communist Party surfaced as groups for these parties and they played all politics to strengthen their wings of teacher unions. After the general election, Nepali Congress came to power. The Nepali Congress Education Minister Committed blunder in the national teacher selection examination. Normally, if there were 100 vacancies, only about 125 persons would have been selected for interview. That was the practice. But, the Education Minister directed that everyone who secured pass marks were declared fit for interview. The UML Teacher Unions smelt rat in this action and declared it was policy of the Nepali Congress government to appoint their people. So, the UML affiliated Teacher Unions blocked the task of providing permanence on the basis of the said examination. From that time, permanent appointment of teacher has remained a never-ending problem. Some settlements were sought with negotiations with teacher unions. As there was no atmosphere to conduct fresh competitive examination for the selection of teachers, there has been accumulation of the temporary teachers who were employed to run the 14 schools. As the government could not conduct competitive examination for years the number of teachers appointed on temporary basis grew and they worked for many years on temporary basis. Now, they demanded that they cannot sit in the general competitive examination. They demand privilege to get permanent position without sitting in the general competitive examination.

As measure to put pressure (political), they lock-up the school gates, organize demonstration like the laborers of factories. Government sits down with them for negotiation and agrees to take actions, which they do not. Because, it would be a decisive step to purposely destroy the quality of education. And, temporary teachers start the agitation. This is going on for years and has been continued even today. Community Schools in the municipal areas Community schools in an urban or suburban area are a misnomer now. The (government) community schools have gradually lost their students during the past two decades.

They have students of these parents who are either migrant workers or unskilled workers. The present SMC memberships have heavy representation from the parents and guardians. The urban/ suburban schools do not have qualified interested guardians to be the members of the SMC. How can one think of support of SMC in the urban or suburban schools where parents are neither qualified nor interested to support the schools? In general, the head teachers and teachers do not see the use of SMC. In urban schools, one does not find guardians who could provide support to the school.

In rural area, one has people who have their eye on the soft money scholarship, tiffin, stationery money provided by the government. Summary: the status of community schools has reached at a very pathetic state. Inspite of the efforts of the government to help community schools which is loosing students. The SEE result of community schools has always been frustrating. However, there are still some community schools, which are no inferior to good institutional schools. This indicates that there is silver lining in the dark cloud. If proper actions are taken, there is genuine help that community schools with improve their academic performance.

Suggestions:

I would like to recommend the following points to achieve the quality educations depending upon the roles of related authorities.

1. The existing regulation for the selection of head teacher should be revised. There should be a system in which a head teacher of a secondary school should be appointed through district-wide open competition. The selection committee should be chaired by the District Education Officer.

2. Head teacher should get attractive allowance, not less than ten per cent of the basic salary.

3. All schools within the municipal area should have an Advisory Committee of about 10-15 people. The committee will have people who are willing to help the school.

4. Supervisors will have to be changed to Assistant District Education Officer. Their main goal would be to activate the Resource Persons.

5. Resource Person should be appointed on the basis of open competition among teachers, of the district. The tenure should be of four years on the condition of termination at any time mainly for reasons of incompetency. RP can be transferred from one cluster to another or even district if needed.

6. Resource Persons should be provided all privileges enjoyed by the supervisors for travelling.

7. The Radio Education Programme of NCED should provide frequent projection of the works of good head teachers.

8. Action Research programme should be launched widely to identify areas which need special attention of the government to raise the quality of community schools.

9. NCED should conduct very high level training for the head teachers and Resource Persons.

10. The NCED should conduct high level training for DEO’s and RP’s

11. Good Head Teacher Awards should be instituted and Awards should be handed over an Education Day by the President of Prime Minister.

12. Foreign visit programmes should be implemented for potential good head teachers.

13. Formation of School Management Committee of secondary schools should be regarded as a major function and DEO should personally be engaged in this activity. Assistant DEO’s should handle this activity for lower secondary and primary schools.

Conclusion:

I think the most fundamental thing is food, shelter and clothes. Then it is education, then health and security. Education is a matter of concern over all. People can pay taxes but the local government should have a planned approach. The decision should be taken by municipal or rural municipal councils. There should be open discussion with the public. Now, we have a great opportunity. Some rural municipality have already taken decisions and started formulating laws. If we move forward in the right track, we can make tangible gains in education.

Use of ICT and teachers should be fulfilled for proper utilization of the tools. Parents, community and teachers should play vital role for the utilization adequate time and involve the children in some household works to make them practical with the use of soft and hard skills. Education must fulfill the requirement digital era. Then, so called quality education. The integrative support certainly would be milestone for obtaining quality education.

(Khatri is Vice- Chairperson of Nepal English Language Teachers’ Association (NELTA), Banke)