Programme Management

Some Basic Principles

The Joint GOI-UN System Education Programme gives greater thrust on management of the programme in a manner that is participatory, bottom-up and less bureaucratic. Since, it is expected that the programme would evolve on the basis of experience at grassroots, it should not be difficult for programme authorities at various level to be sensitive, collaborative and accommodating towards communities at grassroots.

The most important characteristic of management of the Joint GOI-UN System Education Programme is its mission mode. The programme has to be seen as a societal mission for bringing about basic changes for the development of processes and systems. This commitment has to permeate through all people.

The mission mode also assumes that there will be a sense of urgency, a time-bound scheme of things in which specific responsibility is attached to institutions, agencies, or individuals, and they are accountable for the responsibility assigned to them. This method of management also calls for a rigorous system of planning and review in which people meet in small manageable groups, discuss milestones, recall successes and analyse failures.

The programme would be implemented through existing structures of educational administration at various levels. As far as possible, efforts would be made to avoid duplication and parallel structures. Greater emphasis would be given on integration and convergence of programmes and networking of structures evolved so far as to pursue UEE. The basic principles to facilitate this would be:

i) transparency of action, ii) openness to ideas, iii) commitment to participation by all actors, iv) improved communication, v) shared information base, vi) greater autonomy and empowerment, vii) participatory monitoring and evaluation, viii) compatibility with local communities, ix) conscious recognition of mutual inadequacies and humility to change and learn and x) participatory processes for planning at grassroots.

However, for effective implementation the programme has to be debureaucratised because bureaucratisation presupposes:

• Hierarchial structures in which powers and responsibility are vested on the top, and all functionaries look up to the structure above;

• Motivation and encouragement come from above, rather than from any deep commitment. In traditional bureaucratic structures, the subordinates are treated with scant respect;

• People outside the bureaucratic framework—voluntary agencies, teachers, students, and their parents, the community at large—are considered beneficiaries and not people for whom the system exists.

The essence of debureaucratisation is that the hierarchies must be pulled down. Networks need to be built, with symbiotic effect. All colleagues have to be allowed to understand, absorb and internalise the tasks and the challenges. In such a situation, management essentially becomes an educative and interactive low participatory process.

It is obvious that in such a system, selection and placement of staff will not be a routine affair. There will have to be special selection, based on willingness to join this campaign. Only persons who have given evidence of commitment to social development, particularly of women and the deprived sections of society, can be considered eligible. Those selected will have to be oriented through well-planned programmes. Women will have to be given a special priority in staff selection at all levels.

Debureaucratisation must result in the evolution of participatory styles of management. All people concerned will have to sit together, reflect, understand and achieve a sense of solidarity. Various categories of people will have to be involved as active participants in the management of the programmes; perhaps, the most important among them are teachers. Through their organisations, as well as through selection of talented persons among them, it should be possible to develop a design in which all decisions which affect the teaching or learning processes are made by groups of teachers. Teachers and people involved in the management will have to evolve means for understanding the concerns and expectations of the learners, parents, and the community. At the village level, this would, perhaps, materialise through Village Education Committees (VECs). However, it is imperative that the teachers develop a sense of duty towards the people, viz., learners, their parents, and the community. Voluntary agencies and creative individuals can play a very important role in the development of participatory management structures. Voluntary agencies would have a role to play in various ways, which would include:

• community mobilisation

• running of non-formal education programmes;

• training of teachers, local-level functionaries and members of VECs;

• provisions of a support system for VECs;

• social development capability studies.

• innovation and experimentation.

The critical objective of the programme is active involvement of the communities in effective school management and supervision. On several occasions in the past, attempts were made in this direction by the governmental and non-governmental organisations. These attempts have mainly placed responsibility on a village education committee, or some such village level body, to provide material and financial support to the primary school, without delegating any real powers to it. Effective decentralisation of basic education at the village level, means that the institutions of basic education should be made accountable to the village community and the latter taking responsibility for achievement of UEE and for providing the necessary wherewithal for it.