Role and Participation of Parent Teacher Association in School Management: Evidences from School of Madhya Pradesh

The last decade in Madhya Pradesh has witnessed a major change in the role of the community participation. After 73rd Amendment Act, Madhya Pradesh became the first State which enacted new Panchayat Raj Act in 1993 and formed PRIs. After formation of PRIs, State Government gave several powers and responsibilities to PRIs for improving educational facilities. There has been a movement of the community from the periphery of the educational system to its active participation in school management. This has been made possible through concerted efforts of mobilising the community through awareness generation programmes, training, use of media etc. This was further institutionalised under the Jan Shiksha Adhiniyam 2002 (JSA), which brought the community to the centre stage for ensuring quality and equity in education. The Act provided for setting up of Parent Teacher Association (PTA) for each school, giving them the responsibility of school management. This was to ensure the involvement of parents who were the main stakeholders and thereby enhancing their capabilities. The father and mother or guardian of each child enrolled in the school and all teachers posted in the school were made the members of the PTA. Review of Literature The investment in education has been substantially insignificant in comparison to other sectors. The promise of National Policy of Education (NPE) to increase the investment on education to 6 per cent of national income never been a reality (Ghai, 2010). The universalisation of elementary education through 86th Amendment brought a remarkable change in raising the opportunities of children getting education without any discrimination of caste, gender, disability or otherwise. One of the important aspects of universal education was school based management which was actually decentralisation of educational administration down to the school level. coordinated efforts of government, teachers, public, parents and village education committee (VEC) will facilitate to create a new system of education to meet then local needs and inspirations of the community (Yadav: 2006). These education committees were structured to participate with the community which was a very crucial input towards the universalisation of Education. Methodology The paper is based on a study conducted in 10 districts of Madhya Pradesh From each district two development blocks were selected and from each block 10 schools were selected for the sample. Thus the total sample comprised of 200 schools from 20 blocks of 10 districts. From each block, 10 schools from 10 different villages linked with 10 different PTAs were selected randomly. The selected school was mainly elementary (Grade I-VII) / primary (I-V) functioning as one school. As school was the unit of the study, all the concerned PTAs were the part of the sampling frame. Since the school was the unit of the observation, the main served village (where the school is located/ from which the school draws maximum number of children) was selected. In this way, total 200 villages were selected from ten blocks. PTAs: Basic Facts Parent Teacher Association (PTA) is one of the important constituent in the Jan Shiksha Adhiniyam. The main responsibility of PTAs was to monitor the daily activities of the school along with helping in its management. They were formulated in such a manner that their presence acted as a sort of checks and balance over the management and administration of the school. The inclusion of PTAs in school activities was also felt important as they acted as crucial link between school authorities and students family. They are instrumental in raising not only the awareness regarding the importance of education among the parents but also in solving important issues of students in consultation with the parents. The PTAs interviewed from the sample were mostly members and presidents of the association (44.2 and 40. …