School councils

All schools have their own parents-teachers school councils. But not all function as they should. Some may not even have become aware of their real mission. Yet, their importance in the life of the school and the education of pupils is very manifest.

Frans Borg, founder-director of the School Councils Federation, has been very articulate of late about the importance of school councils. One aspect of their attention and care should be the curriculum, he insists.

The Education Division has experts in curriculum planning. Yet the contribution that parents, in collaboration with teachers, can provide goes beyond the parameters of the guidelines of the experts.

Parents on their own and teachers on their own can and often do realise that amendments are needed to the set curriculum. They realise that the schools in different towns and villages have their own culture and requirements.

Families living in or around an industrial or agricultural area recognise that their vision, their requirements, their aspirations are different from those of others. Therefore it is clear that education and even their schooling, to reduce the present system to its actual terms, are different in theory and practice.

Of course, their bases are the same. But the fine-tuning is different in planning and application because the ambience is not exactly identical.

School ethos

It has been recognised that every school should have its own ethos. It is where this is recognised to its full extent that planning can start. There can be no change or progress without planning. The planning must have a basis on which the objective is visualised and the aims set forth for research and action taken thereon. The results of the research have to be analysed and synthesised to determine what kind of action is to be planned.

Just as the requirements of localities are not identical, so are the qualifications or aspirations of members of the council, especially those of parents.

It may be the case of having to train the parent members to make them articulate about what their ideal and real needs are. Their wish to rise above their own level of lifestyle is salutary, provided that the circumstances permit or are consonant with this wish. This is why meetings between parents and teachers must first be held to try and understand each other and what they expect from life for themselves and, more importantly, for the children in the school.

It is only after this preliminary discussion that the school council can begin to operate on the real issues concerning the school and its pupils, and that a policy can be formulated. Even at this point parents and teachers have to understand that there must be fine-tuning. This is only possible after consideration of the experience gained so far.

Experience of generation gap

Mentioning experience, the term of office of the council should be longer than at present, ideally three or four years. It may be found necessary to plan the curriculum and administrative stages in periods of three or four years each. It may be worthwhile considering that even in such circumstances plans may be found to need flexibility.

In secondary schools, where students in the upper forms are teenagers, generation gap problems must be faced. Psychologically, teenagers start maturing and there is a nascent feeling of responsibility. In this context they may feel ready to participate in arriving at a policy decision. It may be found possible to rope their representative in the council. At the end of the day this may be advantageous to both teachers and parents in the school council.

The experience gained by members of the council may demand a different outlook into the problems experienced and envisaged during the years.

The attitude of members of the council, both of parents and teachers, must be flexible. This is why it is being proposed to allow participation of representatives of the senior classes in the school council.