According to United Nations Conventions on the Rights of Child (UNCRC), every child has the following four fundamental rights:
- Right To Survival
- Right To Development
- Right To Protection
- Right To Participation
Government of India ratified the UNCRC on November 12, 1992. While progress has been made in several areas of child development with hard work by Government, NGOs and the civil society, Schools hardly look at these rights as part of schooling process.
One of the main reasons for such an approach is that many schools are neither aware of these rights nor know how to connect them with schooling process. There are several NGOs who work on one of these rights, but not all the four. Such disconnect from these rights poses a challenge in ensuring compliance in schools.
Relief Foundation has developed a unique matrix of establishing Child Rights in the school context called as Child Rights Compliance Index. With strong backing of the Montessori Philosophy and Child Rights, we have looked into every aspect of the schooling process and have covered all the stakeholders involved in the development of a child in a school. This project stems from the UNICEF Child Friendly School programmes, however it is with measurable parameters fit to be used by any one who is conversant in Child Rights . The tool aims at identifying in the precise performance indicators of a school in areas that matter in conferring the child his/her rights.
Although the CRCI has a regional focus, and has to be contextually understood its core structure- its backbone is the Universal Rights for Children, which makes this project exportable to other regional contexts, with the necessary changes. In this way, the CRCI follows the structure of the four fundamental rights of children. In the context of a school, we have fused the parameters on rights for Survival and Protection
There are three levels to the CRCI model viz. , Basic or minimum, optimal and excellence quality standards. Once the school has obtained the minimum mark required to be eligible as a basic children's rights compliance school, it can move on to the second level optimal and finally to the third level, excellence. For existing schools, we could use this model to audit all the areas and share the outcome with the concerned school management. Confidentiality on the outcome of the audit will be fully maintained. A confidentiality agreement would be signed between Relief Foundation and the respective school before the audit. School Board members who are interested to take it further can approach us for further support through our Happy School Programme for schools. For new schools, this model can be used as a reference point to build a child friendly environment from conception up to completion. Covered in the audit are the following
Right To Development
- Academic
- Artistic
- Physical
- Psychological
- Spiritual
- School Planning
Right To Participation
- Expression
- Information
- School Management
- Community Outreach Right To Protection (includes Survival rights)
- Physical
- Physiological
- Psychological
- Environment No. of parameters:
• Development – 60
• Participation – 31
• Protection – 41 Total parameters 132
Feeding these into the software, generates an index called the Child Rights Compliance Index of the school.
Schools that can be considered:
• Minimum 100 students with KG plus Primary and / or till middle school.
• Any type of school that is operational for more than 2 years.
• The school data should be available to the audit team and the management and staff should fully cooperate during the audit.
For more details write to us at relieffoundationindia@gmail.com
2. School Leadership programme
We have found that an effective leader is crucial to road map a successful school, providing services to children that are current and of superior quality.
Principals play a vital role in setting the direction for successful schools, but existing knowledge on the best ways to prepare and develop highly qualified candidates is sparse. What are the essential elements of good leadership? How is administration and promotion of good quality teaching balanced in a school? How is a team inspired into action? We hope that answers to these questions may emerge through the deliberations. Interactive presentations, role-plays, evocative videos and hands on group exercises will mark each of the sessions.
Objective: To enhance leadership skills for incumbent and aspiring principals of schools aiming to provide quality education for children.
Target group: Principals, School Board members, and senior teachers with a minimum of 3 years teaching experience.
Methodology: Interactive sessions with role-plays and challenging, real life case studies.
Portfolio and assignments are to be submitted by participants as a part of course completion.
Course material: Articles and sample presentations, case studies by renowned educationists, books of relevance, personal productivity worksheets, teacher assessment samples, and abstract of lectures.
A one week intensive residential program that would equip school leaders on various aspects of School Planning, management, recruitment, funding and maintenance. A certificate would be issued to this effect from a Certified Training Company after an evaluation of the candidate is done after the course requisites are completed.
● Meaning of life and our mission on planet earth
● Learning - a new dimension, the new approach for New Age teaching/coaching
● Emotional Mastery and Self-esteem - how to develop in self and students
● Attitude and Goal setting- very essence of success in life
● Change - coping with, managing and proactively creating changes
● NLP/Alpha Mind and allied tools to accomplish behavioural mastery, EFT - Emotional Freedom Technique
● Recruiting the right teachers, how and why
● Leadership by encouragement –building an inspired team
● 5 S in educational institutions
● Setting quality standards in school practices
● Parent - school interface and involvement
● Staff collaboration processes
● Documentation, protocols and systems in educational institutions
● Public relations, building expertise and fund raising for a school
● Modelling ethical standards in a school environment
