Tweet

Stakeholder Perception In Child-Friendly Schools

By PR GuruprasadcloseAuthor: PR Guruprasad Name: PR Guruprasad
Site: http://educationwriter.blogspot.com
About: Panamalai R Guruprasad has served in K-12 school systems, Educational Publishing and E_learning for over 30 years. He holds B Sc [Physics], B Ed [English and Physical Science] and M A [Childcare and Education] degrees. In 2008-09, he worked as Technical Advisor to the Inspectorate of Education at the Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports, Government of Cambodia, on a one year placement. His published works include an ebook `Creative Classrooms and Child Friendly Schools’ and 57 articles in teacher magazines such as Teachers Net Gazette. Most of the articles are based on his own professional experience in 6 developing countries including his home country India. He continues to contribute articles whenever he finds time from his work as Manager, Content Development in a K-12 E_learnng Company in Gujarat, India. He can be reached directly at panamalairguruprasad@gmail.com or by visiting his blog http//www.educationwriter.blogspot.comSee Authors Posts (7)

As manufacturing and service industries are increasingly driven by consumer demands, they place a lot of emphasis on customer friendly approaches in their functioning.  Although schools have always been expected to consider children to be the most important “consumers” of their “products”, it is only in the past few years or so, that there has been a significant improvement in this direction, in the developing world.  Today, many national governments are formulating policies and frameworks so that their schools can be child friendly. 

In 2007, the Ministry of Education, Youth and Sport, Government of Cambodia, established a policy to develop a “Child Friendly Schools Program” to be adapted by all primary schools in the country. The policy reflected important dimensions of educational development such as equity, quality, and active participation of all stakeholders within school and the communities in which they functioned.  The ministry stressed the need to develop tools using which school directors can monitor and evaluate the level of child friendliness of their schools by using a document known as “School Self Assessment Form”. 

By 2008, the SSA Form was developed by professionals working at the Ministry (through Voluntary Service Overseas, a British NGO) and implemented it as a pilot project in one province in the country.  As technical advisor currently working at the Ministry (through VSO), I was asked to bring in improvements in the existing School Self Assessment Form, in response to which, I developed a set of three questionnaires, as shown below, targeted at the most important stakeholders within the school, viz. teachers, parents and students.  The questionnaires enable the respondents to study each item and select an option.  The tool incorporates a Lickert type rating scale (Don’t agree, Partly agree and Fully agree).