Making the house system more effective in Schools

 

Making the house system more effective in Schools

 

“When you introduce competition into the public school system, most studies show that schools start to do better when they are competing for students.”                                – Bill Cosby.

 

The objective of education is to bring desirable changes in the behavior of a student, and the focus is all round development. Co-curricular and extra-curricular activities play an important role in grooming the latent qualities of the students. These activities are organized in almost all schools in some way or the other. In most of the schools, co-curricular and extra-curricular activities are conducted through house system. The House system of school is of great importance to school life. This system brings out hidden talent of students and gives them opportunity to explore themselves & develops the spirit of healthy competition among students and promotes it within school. The inter – house activities give all students the opportunity to participate in various literary, Art & Craft, sport, music and other co-curricular activities with the aim of raising self-esteem, developing self-confidence and giving opportunities for leadership and teamwork beyond those already available within school. The main aim of the house system in schools is to accommodate more and more students and to inculcate competitiveness among them. House system apart from co-curricular activities, collectively can be used for engaging students in social welfare works, academic projects etc.

 

The House system began in boarding schools of England later it spread across globe during colonial period. Initially in England, boarding schools were literally having houses for the students to live in and various activities were conducted to engage students. Nowadays all schools (not only boarding schools) have house names, but no physical houses mandatorily. In house system, a school is divided into a number of houses (generally four) and each student is allocated to one house and competitions are organized at primary & secondary levels. These house competitions are organized weekly in front of all the students of the school during the last two periods called as co-curricular activities (CCA) periods. Each house has a cross section of the students in the school i.e. one-fourth from each class & age group. The reason for dividing students in houses is to divide a large group of students into smaller groups which ensures more individual attention and support to students. Students would strongly identify with their house and there would be regularly inter house competitions in co-curricular activities and sports etc. Once a student has been allocated to a house they usually stay with the house for years in school but sometimes their houses may be changed due to school change or any other administrative reasons. Houses may compete with one another in co-curricular activities, sports and maybe in other ways, thus providing a focus for group behavior or teamwork. Each house would have an in-charge teacher of the house called House Master/Mistress and a few teachers as committee members from different subjects/ streams to assist students in various activities. House masters appoint House Captains, Vice Captains, and other house prefects, who exercise limited authority within the house and assist in other school activities. Houses are named after saints, freedom fighters, leaders, colors and geographical identities etc. and are a matter of pride for associated students and teachers.

House system creates a positive school culture that focus on lifting each other up. Houses should be assigned to students on random basis and house masters, teachers should also be assigned a house on random basis to lead and assist students through lottery/ opening envelopes/ picking chits for selection to remove all prejudices. Then students should be asked to take house uniforms as per their matching houses. Each house is a team that works together and students participate in various competitions to collect points for ranking. Houses may be given points for positive behaviors of students. Earned points are announced in morning assembly and displayed on score board of school on every week. So that all house members may take note of it and plan their participation accordingly. Participation by any specific student in competitions can be restricted so that maximum students can participate in competitions. At the end, CCA coordinator reveals the final points gained by all house and best house is awarded shield/trophy. Students scream, sing, cheer, chant, dance and smile and feel happy. The feeling of being a part of a certain house involves great pride. So on an overall perspective, house system can be said a pretty crucial to develop leadership quality, team work etc. among students.

Apart from many positive things in house system, it is criticized for not aligning with school spirit. Many students dislike it as they don’t have friends in their houses, therefore they don’t participate in a way that they would if they had friends to help them participating in competitions. Inter house rivalry and ego clash can be seen in house system. House system weakens bonding among class students and they have little less emotions with other house members during class reunions. In spite of unwillingness of a few students, school administration keep pushing them to actively participate in house activities as they think this will help younger students acclimate by being in a house with older students who will mentor them. The present system of organizing these competitions do not fulfill the main aim of house system and do not cater to the psychological needs and aptitude of the students of different age group and different interest and hobbies. They also lack in variety and as such do not suit to the tastes of students. Even the main idea of the mass participation is not fulfilled since the total numbers of the students in houses are very large. Only a few of them get a chance and majority of them are generally ignored. . In order to ensure maximum participation the present houses maybe divided into groups with specific names. The division in these groups should be made as per students’ interest and choice. Inter house competitions among these groups should be organized simultaneously to cover up wide variety of activities. The best of these may be given a chance to have repeat performance during morning assembly or any special occasion. To conclude it may be stressed that at no stage a child should be made a passive listener. His/ her active environment in the activity being organized can be insured only when it caters to his or her taste and effects and improvement in his or her behavior, even when the child is one among the audience. This can be possible only by affecting changes in the existing houses system by subdivisions as already mentioned.

 

Aims and Objectives of House System-

(i)             to prepare a child responsible citizen, a constructive future leader and sensitive human being by inculcating in him the qualities of healthy competitiveness and active participatory environment in house activities.

(ii)            to develop peer relationships and fostering of community feeling among students.

(iii)          to make a child mentally aware, physically fit and intellectually sound by adjusting in the school family comprising of people of different walks of life.

(iv)          to make a child aware of the significance of accurate and specific means to achieve the end while interacting in competitive environment.

(v)            to inculcate in a child the quality of team spirit and to make proper use of all the talents available in the house.

(vi)          to ensure vertical interaction among students, where the young look up to the elder and the elder look out for and support the younger.

(vii)         to motivate a child to be self-disciplined, self-reliant, self-responsible and broad mindedness while taking part in house activities.

 

As ours is a land of cultural diversity, all curricular and co curricular activities should be chalked and conducted in such a way that they ensure desired harmonious and emotional development of students and also to preserve basic values of our society. In this context the house system in schools become more significant as a means to achieve goal. The house system is the backbone of school activities and also the foundation of all round development of personality of a student. Therefore the house system must be made more effective. For making house system more effective we have to develop such strategies by which the system could best be utilized for achieving aims and objectives set by the school and also for a smooth running of the school.

Steps/ strategies to make house system more effective-

1.     Students of house on duty maybe assigned duties for conducting morning assembly.

2.     If possible house captain may be changed in a month or two, so that more and more children may get an opportunity to develop traits of leadership which will ultimately lead to self discipline in students.

3.     House captains/ prefects could be assigned the task of maintaining discipline especially during morning assembly and interval.

4.     House system could be effectively used for creating an atmosphere for healthy competitions during various co-curricular activities including cultural, literary activities, Club activities, games and sports etc.

5.     Value education viz. honesty, sincerity, to give due regards to senior students, teachers and all elders could be imported during house meetings.

6.     House of old students should not be changed every year. This develops a feeling of belongingness among the students for that house and ultimately such feeling of belongingness may be developed for the school and so on.

7.     Some new types of competitions viz. paper reading on current topics, group discussion on any topic / present problem, which helps in personality development of the child, may be included.

8.     Lastly success of any system program depends up on proper supervision and monitoring. So to ensure the active participation of housemasters and their associates, they may be asked to submit self appraisal regarding their contribution in such activities and the same maybe reflected in ACRs/ APARs.

 

Moreover the role of the School Principal, House Masters and judges are equally important. As principal is the hub of the school system, his role is equally significant in making the house system more effective. He has to conduct meeting of CCA in-charge and house masters in the beginning of the session and to make them aware of aims and objectives of house system, to finalize annual plan of house activities in the beginning of the session, to ensure the annual plan is executed properly and to supervise the functioning of house activities, & to provide all the requirement for organizing house activities. Role of CCA in-charge and House Masters is to select the competent House Captains/ Prefects with care and fairness, to ensure participation of all the students in one or other activities & to prepare the participants for different activities. Role of the Judges is so important that no program can be effectively without judgment. Therefore the judgment must be fair and impartial while judging the program and a judge must be specialized in particular field of house activities and the criteria of judgment must be explained to all participants well before start of the competition.

 

 

Written by :

Ambrish Kumar Gupta

Principal

Kendriya Vidyalaya Rajkot. Gujarat.

Email- akgkvs@gmail.com

Education- M.A. in Ancient Indian History & Archaeology, B.ED.

NET Qualified in History, Archaeology, Indian Culture.

 

The Impact of COVID-19 on School Education & The Path to Recovery

 The Impact of COVID-19 on School Education & The Path to Recovery

COVID-19 has caused a devastating impact on almost every sect & section of the society on the earth. The World Health Organization (WHO) has declared it “a global pandemic” seeing worst impact of it on human health and world economy. Shutting down the international and domestic travelling and locking down the people in their homes was recognized as the only way to control the spread the ever changing Corona Virus. During the lockdown, multiple issues related to social, educational, economical, political, agricultural, psychological levels and many more have been noticed in global societies, which have created the devastating impact on the lives of the people.

The impact of COVID-19 on education has been harsh and its consequences will be seen in coming days. The pandemic forced schools and educational institutions to shut down and as per reports, around 25 crore students were badly affected due to school closure globally during the lockdown period. The pandemic posed several challenges in public and private schools which included a high rise in dropouts, learning losses, closure of many private schools and increase in digital divide. The pandemic also raised a question mark on preparedness of the school education system including teachers training for such conditions. It is assumed that the impact of school closures will have lifelong impact on the productivity of this generation of students. Children being out of the school for about two years will have greater impact on their learning capacity & outcomes.

Lockdowns during COVID-19 have interrupted traditional schooling for about 2 years globally including India except a few countries like Iceland & Sweden, where primary and lower secondary education remained open with some restrictions. Although government and educational community have made concerted efforts to maintain learning continuity during the pandemic period but students had to rely more on their own resources to continue learning through the internet, television and radio. Teachers also had to adapt new pedagogical concepts and modes of delivering of teaching for which they were not trained. Students from marginalized and under privileged groups, who hadn’t access to digital devices for learning by own, were at risk and lagged behind. Students were promoted without quality assessment and formal examinations. Many students were struggling to get passing marks even after reduction of 25-30 percent syllabus in curriculum. Instructional time in online learning mode reduced also in comparison with instructional time being used in offline school system and practical & lab activities affected badly. Learning loss of students in this situation resulted in skills loss and the efficiency & productivity of such students declined. These students may face difficulty in preparation of competitive examinations or pursuing their higher education as the syllabus for these competitive exams were not reduced and they may find themselves in difficult situations while applying for job or they may funneled out by employers.

Teachers who are well versed in chalk & talk method, Blackboard and book based classroom teaching, were really new to this digital teaching and trying hard to adopt and handling new ICT enabled methods of teaching to ensure teaching-learning during the pandemic time to aid students and engage them in constructive manner and keep them away from stress and disconnection with academic activities. But on the other hand, many teachers associated with private schools had lost their jobs or faced heavy cut in salaries and perks. Many among them were forced to search an alternative job to support their families.

 

Educated parents were supporting their children throughout the pandemic, but most of the illiterate and marginalized parents especially in rural areas were feeling of helplessness to help their children in their education.

There are many parents in India who send their children to school so that they can get sufficient food for survival under Mid Day Meal scheme. This scheme has helped many children who couldn’t bring their food from the home to get their nutrition. Dropout cases rapidly increased during pandemic period as most of the school-going children from economically weaker section were involved in child labour to support their families. Parents from these section are mostly unwilling to send their girl child to the school as they see it impractical and financial burden in doing so. This pandemic has not only affected the students but also the low-budget schools and institutions also, resulting in close-down the same. Parents denied fees to these school in mass during pandemic period due to closure of schools,  ineffective online teaching  and inability to join online classes due to lack of digital devices & internet connectivity. Many parents from middle and upper middle class also denied paying fees in various heads which resulted in failure of even many big schools and institutions build on bank loan facility to run because of inability of paying installment against loan taken for building school infrastructure, arranging digital & smart classes and buying busses.

 

The COVID-19 impact was both positive and negative happening around us. Educational Technology paves the way for virtual education and expansion of educational reach, thus helping the students and teachers to connect one another virtually through online classrooms, webinars, digital exams, and so on. The government also got opportunity to bring desired changes in existing education system during pandemic what the government was trying hard to implement from past many years. The New Education Policy (NEP)-2020 and subsequent initiatives such as National Digital Education Architecture (NDEAR) and National Initiative for Proficiency in Reading with Understanding and Numeracy (NIPUN Bharat) came into being during the pandemic. Government started many TV channels like SWAYAMPRABHA and Radio Channels like GYANVANI for broadcasting video and audio lessons of all classes and subjects to reach out students having no electronic gadgets. Web portals/Applications like NISHTHA were also widely used for study and training purpose of students and teachers.

 

Students from privileged class with their parent’s support and eagerness had an alternative opportunity to use private digital learning platforms full of educational contents, to gain knowledge at their own pace and by real time lessons led by their teachers using virtual meeting platforms. These online learning platforms became very popular during pandemic and now it has turned into parallel to the educational institutions. Although students from disadvantaged groups remained out from their schooling which widened “Digital Devide” and need to be removed with immediate initiatives and active support from government. Thus, a variety of resources were used for virtual and distance learning to support students who were unable to come to school during pandemic, including pdf files of textbooks, printouts of notes & worksheets and live worksheets, Radio and TV education & real time instructional platforms etc. but mostly schools and students used real-time online platforms for their study like Google Meet, Microsoft Team, Zoom, Cisco-Webex etc.

 

Government & educational institutions worked hard to develop training portals like DIKSHA and online training modules to train teachers and provide support for digital learning. Such efforts enabled teachers and students to access specialized learning materials in multiple formats beyond textbooks. Similarly simulation based virtual laboratories like O-Labs etc gave students opportunity to design, conduct and learn from virtual experiments. Further, Portal like VIDYANJALI provided opportunity to all teachers, parents or any other stakeholders to contribute in creating digital learning materials for students. Such platforms helped teachers and all other stakeholders to work as co-creators of knowledge, coaches, mentors and evaluators.

 

PM CARES fund are being used by Government of India to support education of children who lost their families in pandemic period. All academic expenditures of such students will be borne by government. But this is not sufficient to bring back the disfigured education system on track due to COVID-19.  Government must increase it’s budget elocution on Education and utilize public funds to provide equal opportunity of education to all citizens. Education and Public Healthcare is an area in which government intervention to public fund, direction or regulation of provision of these services are must so that government can ensure that education is not beyond the reach of some peoples of society as there is no guarantee that market will provide equal access to education to all. Government should release a relief package for educational sector and provide electronic gadgets and financial assistance to students for paying fees and buying books & notebooks. Funds must be released to equip schools with digital platform and tools for ICT enabled learning. Government should also try to regulate prices of Books, Notebooks, and Stationery etc. to make these affordable to all parents. Government should also provide relief to parents by wavering interest on educational loans taken for studies during the pandemic period and Scholarship should be given to meritorious and needy students.

 

Everything is done for the well-being of the students so that they can stay safe at home and keep learning without getting affected by the life threatening Corona virus. Though we were not ready to face such situations, but with continuous effort of teacher’s fraternity and government support, we succeeded in providing flawless education to students even during pandemic period.  Now we have entered in the recovery phases of COVID-19, we need to critically evaluate our existing education system and bring revolutionary changes in it. It seems that the present government is taking all possible steps to overhaul and reconstruct existing education system as per need of the time. The New Education Policy -2020 aims at building a global best education system rooted in Indian ethos and transforming India into a global knowledge superpower in coming days.

 

Written by :

Ambrish Kumar Gupta

Principal

Kendriya Vidyalaya Rajkot. Gujarat.

Email- akgkvs@gmail.com

Education- M.A. in Ancient Indian History & Archaeology, B.ED.

NET Qualified in History, Archaeology, Indian Culture.