OREANDA-NEWS. Section 21 of the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education (RTE), 2009 stipulates that each Government school, Government Aided school and school belonging to a specified category should have a School Management Committee (SMC) mandated with the work to monitor the working of the school; prepare and recommend School Development Plan; and monitor the utilisation of the grants received, besides their other activities. The SMC is mandatory for all elementary schools. Some Government schools also have Parent Teacher Associations (PTAs) which perform similar functions as assigned to SMC.

Further, ‘Vidyanjali’, a School Volunteer programme was launched in June, 2016. It is an initiative to enhance community and private sector involvement in Government schools to strengthen implementation of co-scholastic activities through the services of volunteers. Volunteers under the programme will offer their services to Government schools through an online portal developed by MyGov.in. The Volunteers will conduct one or more co-scholastic activities with children such as reading to children; helping children with creative writing; public speaking; play acting and preparing story books. The Vidyanjali programme is voluntary in nature and States/UTs that are willing may join the programme. The programme is being piloted across 21 States/UTs namely Assam, Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Delhi, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Jammu & Kashmir, Gujarat, Goa, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Manipur, Odisha, Punjab, Rajasthan, Telangana, Tripura, Uttarakhand and Uttar Pradesh. As per the data made available with the website Mygov.in, so far, 2005 schools have registered with the Vidyanjali Application (App) while, 2084 Apps. have been downloaded and 1216 volunteers have logged in and registered for 815 activities in various schools.

This information was given by the Union Human Resource Development Minister, Shri Prakash Javadekar today in a written reply to a Lok Sabha question.